Principally, two types of coins first appear in the early historic Indian archaeological record: punch-marked silver and copper coins and uninscribed cast copper coins. The punch-marked coins were made by imprinting symbols on the obverse and reverse of these coins by individual punches. These coins were made mostly of silver and, in a much lesser quantity, of copper. The weight system was linked to the weight of a particular type of seed, which was expressed as rati or ratti weight. A 100 ratti weight is known as satamana and a 32 ratti weight as karshapana or kahapana. The first measured between 10.4 and 11.7 grams and the second between 3.33 and 3.74 grams. Elongated sheets of silver and copper were taken out and cut into pieces of approximate weight before they were made to conform to the proper weight system by clipping edges off them. Punches were impressed by separate dies at a single point of time and not by different dies at different times. The punched symbols include a singularly wide range of motifs: geometric patterns, plants, weapons, minuscule representations of humans, and some animals like elephants, hares, bulls, dogs, etc. These motifs are said to run into several hundred varieties. According to P.L. Gupta, one of the most celebrated numismatists of modern India.
They were used with some definite system. Each of the symbols is found confined to the coins of a particular area or on those of a particular variety or type. Thus they enable one to isolate the coins of one area from those of another, of one State from those of another and of one period from those of another…. The coins of each of these states differ from one another in their execution, fabric, weight, quality of metal and symbology.6
The states identified on this basis by Gupta are Surasena, north Panchala (Rohilkhand), south Panchala (lower Doab), Vatsa, Kunala (?Gonda-Bahraich), Kosala, Kasi, Malla, Magadha, Vanga, Kalinga, Andhra, Asmaka, Mulaka (? Hyderabad), Saurashtra and Gandhara.
This opinion may very well be true, but it is not easy to verify or crosscheck it. The thousands of punch-marked coins which have been found distributed all over the subcontinent come mostly from ‘hoards’ and not from verifiable contexts and hence their geographical sorting can never be dependable. However, there is also no reason to waive the opinion of a scholar like Gupta who is well acquainted with punch-marked coins of all areas of the subcontinent. In fact, his analysis offers us a numismatic substantiation of the growth of regional political units from the north-west to the Deccan and the south at the very beginning of early historic India.
Doubts have also been expressed regarding attempts to build up a relative chronology for these coins on the basis of symbols. A distinction is now generally made between the earlier. ‘local issues’ and the later so-called ‘Imperial Series’ which supposedly came up with the expansion of the Magadhan power. The coins of the Imperial Series weigh between 50 and 52 grains/rattis and are found in many sizes, ranging in breadth from 3 to 1 cm.
All the coins uniformly have five symbols, punched from five different punches. The symbols on these coins are simple and complex geometrical patterns, ornamental circles or wheels, the sun, human figures, animals like a bull, an elephant, a hare, a deer, a rhinoceros, a fish, a crocodile, a tortoise, bow and arrow, hills and trees in many conventional forms. No less than 300 varieties of symbols may be identified on these coins. They are placed on the coins in a definite system or order, which enables one to distinguish the coins according to their symbol groups and identify them in about 500 varieties. These varieties may be classified in turn into various classes and groups and ultimately into six series. These six series may be placed into a chronology on the basis of the fabric.7
This offers a most interesting line of enquiry and speaks more eloquently of the extent of monetary economy in early historic India than anything else. But one suspects that its typology and fabric-determined chronology would both need further investigation.
As far as the regional divisions of early punch-marked coins are concerned, the silver bent-bar coins of Gandhara (usually two wheel-marked punches at the two long ends of a bar) form a special category and so does the group of coins which are small, globular and bear the imprint of a single punch. The latter category does not seem to be confined to a single region.
Uninscribed cast copper coins bear the symbols found on punch-marked coins but they are not punched; the coin as a whole was made by pouring molten metal in casts bearing the negatives of these designs. Coins of this type are usually rectangular/square and circular, and are found widely distributed. These coins too are supposed to possess both ‘universal’ and ‘local’ varieties. According to Nissar Ahmad, these coins could have served the purpose of a copper currency of lesser denominations whereas the silver punch-marked coins stood for a standardized and higher 32 grain/ratti standard.
The archaeological horizon, of these two coin-types brooks no controversy. They are found in early NBP level at many excavated sites of northern India, and the general date of their beginning is assumed around c. 600 BC. In view of the earlier date of the NBP at Sringaverapura (c. 700 BC), an earlier date for the beginning of these coins is not an impossibility and brings us closer to what G.R. Sharma wrote on the basis of his excavations of the Kausambi defences. In his chart of the sequence of ‘Kausambi 1957–59’, the square uninscribed cast copper coins are shown spread between Structural Periods 5 and 16 whereas silver punch-marked coins occur between Structural Periods 9 and 14. At Kausambi, the uninscribed cast copper coins are thus considerably earlier than the silver punch-marked coins. In Sharma’s chronological chart, his Structural Period 5 is marked c. 885–c. 815 BC. Theoretically, this becomes the date of the associated uninscribed cast copper coin too. In his drawing of the section concerned, an uninscribed cast copper coin is shown in the painted grey ware level of the site. Sharma’s date makes it too early for comfort; at the same time, Kausambi painted grey ware is not the classic ware of this type—it appears more like the grey ware that one finds associated with black-and-red ware sites at many-places of the central Ganga valley and elsewhere. What is also interesting is that Sharma deduced central Indian chalcolithic pottery elements in the earliest stage of the site. In view of the extensive distribution of black-and-red ware sites in the Sonabhadra region on one of the routes between Gangetic India and central India, Sharma’s hypothesis makes sense. Sharma’s chronological chart based on arbitrary dating of structural periods does not have to be true; what is important is that in a borderline phase between the chalcolithic and the NBP at the site he finds a coin. One does not have to be surprised if at this site this level falls in the seventh century BC or if the uninscribed cast copper coins turn out to be somewhat earlier than the punch-marked coins.
As far as the other coins of this early period are concerned, one has to mention the presence of the Achaemenid daric/‘sigloi’ type in a hoard of the Bhir mound of Taxila, which makes sense in view of the Achaemenid occupation of the area, and the early inscribed copper coins of the Chola, Pandya and Chera kings of the south. K. Rajan mentions that the coins of each dynasty are confined to their territorial divisions. Further he thinks that the square coins are earlier than the round coins of the region.
The earlier square coins like Peruvaluthi clearly stand as testimony that, the Tamil kings started issuing coins as early as the 3rd century BC. Before this we do have local punch-marked coins as suggested by the fish, and bow-and-arrow symbols insignia of the Pandyas and Cheras respectively.8
The punch-marked coins continued in use in the south up to c. fourth century AD. At north Indian sites, its terminal line seems to be uneven; at Kumrahar in Pataliputra, for instance, this is said to have continued c. AD 150.
After the exclusive phase of early coins was over, the numismatic history of early historic India follows a few separate but occasionally interrelated strands. From the late centuries BC onwards, the coin range of the north-western region is dominated, perhaps exclusively, by the coins of the Indo-Greeks, Indo-Scythians and Indo-Parthians (generally in silver and copper and rarely in gold) till the coins issued by the Kushana kings supplant them not merely here but also over a very large tract of Gangetic India. There is a world of difference between the ‘Attic-standard’ (the standard introduced by Alexander in his empire and accepted by his successors in the east), ‘drachms’ (c. 4 g) and ‘tetradrachms’ (c. 16 to 17 g) of the Bactrian Greek kings up to Euthydemus II and the introduction of ‘Indian-standard’ coins with bilingual inscriptions (Greek on one face and Prakrit on the obverse) from Agathocles onwards. In fact, according to O. Bopearachchi, the Bactrian Greek king Demetrius I, who first tried his strength in the south of the Hindukush in the wake of the Mauryan decline, introduced a new coin-type with die-struck punch-mark symbols (not punched separately but all engraved in the same die) for his territories south of the Hindukush, which was still used to the punch-marked system. This underlines once again the tremendous significance of the Hindukush as providing a firm geo-political limit of the South Asian land mass. The coins of Agathocles and the later Indo-Greek coins bear the replicas of Indian deities such as Lakshmi and in the Brahmi or Kharoshthi inscription the Greek name gets Indianized; Agathocles becomes ‘Agathuklaya’ and ‘Pantaleon’ ‘Pamtaleva’. The Indo-Scythian kings like Maues, Azes I and others and the Indo-Parthians like Gondophares are very much in the Indianized Indo-Greek tradition.
‘India’ was not ignored in the Kushana coinage; even in the first group of Kushana issues under Kujula Kadphises the ‘bull’ appears on one type and ‘Kharoshthi’ as the bilingual counterpart of ‘Greek’ in all. Kujula’s coins were all in copper, but Wima Kadphises, his successor, introduced gold coins of three denominations on the model of the Roman coins which were then being imported into south Asia as part of Indo-Roman trade. However, ‘bull’ and ‘Siva’ figure in the Wima coinage which also continued the tradition of bilingual (Greek and Kharoshthi) inscriptions. What is important, however, is that with their extensive possessions in central Asia and with the whole of Afghanistan in their control, the Kushana kings and their coinage were influenced by a motley of elements: Greek, Iranian and Indian. The king after Wima, Kanishka, retains Siva and introduces Buddha as deities on his coins, but a whole host of Iranian (cf. Mithra, Nana) and Greek (cf. Helios) deities also make their appearance on his coins. This tradition continues in the reign of his successors too. On the coins of Huvishka ‘Uma’ and ‘Karttikeya’ find a place along with Siva.
In north India as a whole the phase of early coins was succeeded by an extensive range of local coinage belonging either to kings or tribal republics. The punch-mark tradition is now replaced by the die tradition, but the same symbols continue to occur. These coins have been associated with distinct geographical areas and are very important from this point of view. As far as the political history based on kings of different areas (cf. Ayodhya, Panchala) and tribal republics like the Yaudheyas, Arjunayanas, etc. are concerned, these coins constitute the principal source of study. In the next phase, of course, the Kushana coinage takes over, leaving its mark in different forms even in the post-Kushana coinage.
There is a significant tradition of local coinage in the post-Maurya phase in south India and the Deccan. This belongs to royal families such as ‘Sadakana’ and the succeeding ‘Ananda’ families in Karnataka, and the ‘Kura’ family of the Deccan. These are die-struck coins but the punch-marked symbols continue to occur. This particular tradition of local coinage is soon overshadowed by the coinage of the Satavahana kings, issued mostly in lead and copper. Quite unusually, some Satavahana kings of the early centuries AD issued silver coins bearing their own portraitures and names (in Prakrit written in Brahmi script). It is obviously a case of Indo-Greek influence or the influence of Roman coins flowing by now in peninsular India in thousands. The Satavahana king, Gautamiputra Satakarni, who defeated the Western Kshatrapa king, Nahapana, counterstruck the Nahapana silver coins with his own symbols and name. The successors of the Satavahanas, such as the Ikshakus of Andhra, continue the Satavahana coinage tradition in some way.
The case of the Satavahana contemporaries in western India, the ‘Western Kshatrapas’ with their two branches of Kshaharatas and Karddamakas, shows some influence of the Indo-Greek/Roman coinage in the sense that a royal bust is placed on one side, but the inscriptions are in Sanskrit and Prakrit.
This outline of the pre-Gupta history of Indian coinage shows a clear geographical configuration. Its main trunk is constituted by the wholly indigenous system of punch-marked, uninscribed cast copper and the local coinage tradition. The north-west was not immune from the influence of the punch-marked series, but, on the whole, that developed a tradition which was based on the character of coins of the Oxus-Indus interaction zone but not by ignoring the main south Asian tradition.
The north-western tradition had a faint echo in the coinage of west India and the Deccan but that was purely ephemeral. The Kushanas, with all their central Asiatic interests, could not forget south Asia altogether.