Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India

encyclopedia

COINS

COINS

JETHAVAN MEDALLION

Lord

Buddha was once passing through the

Jethavan forest. His followers wanted

to build a monastery and approached the

owner of the land to sell it to them But he

refused to do so saying," Even if you

cover the entire land with gold coins I

will not sell it. "However the devotees

treated it as an offer and began covering

the ground with gold coins. This incident

is depicted on a medallion in the Indian

Museum at Calcatta.

INTRODUCTION

The people settled in localities and communities and exchange

of products became necessary; this led to the barter system. But

soon the disadvantages of the barter system were realised and the

emergence for a new unit of value began the evolution of coinage.

In ancient India, the Harappan people who extended into the

regions of modern Gujarat, Punjab and Delhi seem to be basically

agriculturists. They perhaps would have used agricultural products

as a medium of exchange in about 3000 B.C. The huge granaries

found in the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro could have been

maintained by the state like the modern banks.

Cows were used as a medium of transaction by the pastoral

Vedic people. A passage in the Rig Veda indicates clearly that the

price of an image of Indra was ten cows. Another passage indicates

that a sage had refused to sell an image of Indra for hundred, a

thousand or even ten thousand cows. Yet another passage indi-

cates that the Bharat army went out for a war to acquire cows. The

Soma plant was exchanged for cows. In the

Aitareya Brahmana,

wealth is estimated in cows. Many instances in the later Vedic lit-

erature show that dakshina (fee) to the ritvika (priest) was paid in

cows.

The

Ashtadhyayi

of Panini says that even in the post-Vedic

period cows were a medium of exchange. The mention of go-

puchcha (cow-tail) is of importance as it was the term used for

cows in transaction. The term go-dan was used when a cow was

presented to the priest. But this system too did not last long

because the purchase of small things and long-term savings was

not possible. The nishka was then introduced being the most prized

ornaments of the Vedic Society. With this began the introduction of

a balance and seeds to weigh as units. The seeds were called

Krishnala and in later literature as raktika or gunja and today as rati.

Yava (barley), tandula (Rice), masha (Pulse), Karsha and Kalanju

(big seeds) were also used as units for weighing. But this system

was tedious in the

Satapatha Brahmana

and the

Srauta Sutras

the Apastamba, Manava, Katyayana, the word hiranya (money) is

used with a term mana (unit) having numerals like 12,24,30,40,70,

100. Satamana (hundred units) is found explicity mentioned as a

metallic piece round in shape. The was the beginning of coinage

Although gold was popular in the Vedic period and was used for

ornaments it was not used for making coins. No coin of India in gold

was known prior to the advent of the Indo-Bactrians in the second

and first centuries B.C. The early coins are all in silver probably due

to the fact that gold was then cheaper in India than elsewhere in the

ancient world and was being exported in exchange for silver.

THE MAURYAN AGE

Kautilya, the Minister of Chandragupta Maurya, in his

Arthasastra,

the book on statecraft written in the fourth century

B.C , has given a list of the objects that were used in the manufac-

ture of coins: crucibles for melting the metal, anvil and hammer for

beating the metal into sheets, clippers for cutting the metal into

pieces, dies with punches or symbols for stamping the metal.

Basically the same process is used today in mints all over the

world.

Those early silver punch-marked coins have been found in large

numbers all over the country. They were issued by the states that

existed in the country after the

Mahabharata

war and some of which

became part of the Magadh empire in the fifth and fourth centuries

B.C.

The silver coins of Asmaka (Fig-1) (the

area south of the Godavari in Maharashtra)

are thick, circular or oval. The symbol on the

obverse of the coins looks like two s mall

pulleys attached to a bigger pulley with two

separate belts. The reverse is blank. They

are known in distinct weights A-99 to 108

grains, 45 to 58 grains and 21 to 23 grains.

Gandhara (Fig-2)(North-Western region

bordering

Afghanistan)

issued

silver

coins

the

form of a long concave shaped bar about 1" to

1.75" in length and about 0.4" in width. The sym-

bol at each end is composed of six arms around a

circle with a dot. The reverse is blank. The coins

in fresh condition would be about 183 grains but

generally found to be between 150 to 180 grains.

On some coins to the concave side punches have

been noticed.

The coins of Andhra (Fig-3) (the delta re-

gion of the Krishna and Godavari) are of ir-

regular shape. An elephant, tree, and a cen-

tral solid circle and four circles around it with

dots in between are the symbols. The reverse

is blank. The coins weigh about 20 grains.

The coins of the Magadh era (Fig-4) can

be divided into two periods: 1) when it was

only a kingdom and 2) when it had become

an empire. Silver coins of the first period have

four symbols, two big, two small showing

sieve patterns. The coins of higher denomi-

nation are thin, oval flat pieces, about one and

a half inches in length and about one inch in

breadth bearing two neat symbols, lotus patterns one smaller than

the other. They weigh about 125 grains. The coins of lower denomi-

nation weigh 3 grains and have a small lotus symbol on them. These

are irregular and have blurred images. In

case of higher denominations even four

symbols were present.

All the coins of the latter period (Fig-5)

uniformly have five symbols: sun, a six

armed symbol, a wheel within a square (or

three fishes around a circle), a rectangle