Punch-marked coins were a type of

karshapana Karshapana (, IAST: ''Kārṣāpaṇa''), according to the Ashtadhyayi of Panini, refers to ancient Indian coins current during the 6th century BCE onwards, which were unstamped and stamped (''āhata'') metallic pieces whose validity depende ...

or Ancient Indian coinage, also known as ''Aahat'' (''stamped'') ''coins'', dating to between about the 6th and 2nd centuries BC. It was of irregular shape. These coins are found over most parts of subcontinent and remained in circulation till the early centuries CE.

History

Janapada Coins

The study of the relative chronology of these coins has successfully established that the first punch-marked coins initially only had one or two punches, with the number of punches increasing over time. 19th-century proposals which suggested an origin from as early as 1000 BC, independent of the introduction of coins in Asia Minor, are "no longer given any credence". According to

Osmund Bopearachchi Osmund Bopearachchi (born 1949) is a Sri Lankan historian and numismatist who has specialized notably standardized the coinage of the Indo-Greek and Greco-Bactrian kingdoms. He is currently Emeritus Director of the CNRS at the École normale supé ...

, the first punch-marked coins in the Indian Subcontinent may have been minted around the 6th century BC by the

Mahajanapadas The Mahājanapadas were sixteen Realm, kingdoms and aristocracy, aristocratic republics that existed in ancient India from the sixth to fourth centuries BCE, during the History of India#Second urbanisation (c. 600 – 200 BCE), second urbanis ...

of the

Indo-Gangetic Plain The Indo-Gangetic Plain, also known as the Northern Plain or North Indian River Plain, is a fertile plain spanning across the northern and north-eastern part of the Indian subcontinent. It encompasses North India, northern and East India, easte ...

. These coins were produced by impressing single punches individually. According to E. J. Rapson, the earliest punch-marked coins were karshapana produced by early Indian kingdoms and tribes before foreign influence. The earliest coins in the subcontinent were bent bar coins with impressions punched into them. Mahajanpadas were issuing coins called satamana. The Kuru kingdom in present day Haryana minted punched coins as excavated in the Babyal Hoard near Sugh Ancient Mound in present day Haryana. The coins of the Babyal Hoard had a

triskelion A triskelion or triskeles is an ancient motif consisting either of a triple spiral exhibiting rotational symmetry or of other patterns in triplicate that emanate from a common center. The spiral design can be based on interlocking Archimedean s ...

-like design punched into them. The

Gandhara Gandhara () was an ancient Indo-Aryan people, Indo-Aryan civilization in present-day northwest Pakistan and northeast Afghanistan. The core of the region of Gandhara was the Peshawar valley, Peshawar (Pushkalawati) and Swat valleys extending ...

Janapada issued stamped bent bar coins prior to the Achaemenid Era. These coins were found mixed along with standard Persian and Greek coins in the Bhir Mound which were likely still circulating during Achaemenid rule. As mentioned by

Pāṇini (; , ) was a Sanskrit grammarian, logician, philologist, and revered scholar in ancient India during the mid-1st millennium BCE, dated variously by most scholars between the 6th–5th and 4th century BCE. The historical facts of his life ar ...

in his work

Aṣṭādhyāyī The (; ) is a grammar text that describes a form of the Sanskrit language. Authored by the ancient Sanskrit scholar Pāṇini and dated to around 6th c. bce, 6-5th c.BCE and 4th c.BCE, it describes the language as current in his time, specifica ...

(350 BCE), Panini categorized ancient Indian coins as ''Karshapanas,'' either marked or unmarked (punched). The coins of this period were punch-marked coins called ''Aahat.'' Several of these coins had a single symbol, for example,

Saurashtra Saurashtra, Sourashtra, or variants may refer to: ** Kathiawar, also called Saurashtra Peninsula, a peninsula in western India ** Saurashtra (state), alias United State of Kathiawar, a former Indian state, merged into Bombay State and since its d ...

had a humped bull, and Dakshin

Panchala Panchala () was an ancient kingdom of northern India, located in the Ganges-Yamuna Doab of the Upper Gangetic plain which is identified as Kanyakubja or region around Kannauj. During Late Vedic times (c. 1100–500 BCE), it was one of the ...

had a

Swastika The swastika (卐 or 卍, ) is a symbol used in various Eurasian religions and cultures, as well as a few Indigenous peoples of Africa, African and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, American cultures. In the Western world, it is widely rec ...

, others, like

Magadha Magadha was a region and kingdom in ancient India, based in the eastern Ganges Plain. It was one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas during the Second Urbanization period. The region was ruled by several dynasties, which overshadowed, conquered, and ...

, had several symbols. These coins were made of

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

of a standard weight but with an irregular shape. This was gained by cutting up silver bars and then making the correct weight by cutting the edges of the coin.

Achaemenid and Greek coinage (6th century onward)

Silver coins were certainly being produced in the

Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, it was the large ...

Satrapy of

Gandāra Gandāra, or Gadāra in Achaemenid inscriptions (Old Persian cuneiform: :Wikt:𐎥𐎭𐎠𐎼, 𐎥𐎭𐎠𐎼, , also transliterated as since the nasal "n" before consonants was omitted in the Old Persian script, and simplified as or somet ...

, by the mid-4th century BC. As mentioned by Plutarch noted

Taxiles Taxiles or Taxilas ( lived 4th century BC) was the Greek chroniclers' name for the ruler who reigned over the tract between the Indus and the Jhelum (Hydaspes) Rivers in the Punjab region at the time of Alexander the Great's expedition. His real ...

(Ambhi) of Taxila exchanged coined tribute with

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

. Coin finds in the

Kabul hoard The Kabul hoard, also called the Chaman Hazouri, Chaman Hazouri or Tchamani-i Hazouri hoard, is a coin hoard discovered in the vicinity of Kabul, Afghanistan in 1933. The collection contained numerous Achaemenid coins as well as many Greek coins f ...

(c. 380 BC), Mir Zakah hoards (c. 100 AD), Taxila Bhir Mound (c. 300 BC), or the Shaikhan Dehri hoard near

Pushkalavati Pushkalavati, was the capital of the ancient region of Gāndhāra, situated in present day's Pakistan. Its ruins are located on the outskirts of the modern city of Charsadda, in Charsadda District, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 35-42 kilometres ...

have revealed numerous Achaemenid coins as well as many

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

coins from the 5th and 4th centuries BC were circulating in the area, at least as far as the

Indus The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans- Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in the Western Tibet region of China, flows northwest through the dis ...

during the reign of the

Achaemenids The Achaemenid dynasty ( ; ; ; ) was a royal house that ruled the Achaemenid Empire, which eventually stretched from Egypt and Thrace in the west to Central Asia and the Indus Valley in the east. Origins The history of the Achaemenid dy ...

(549 - 330 BCE), who were in control of the areas as far as

. In 2007 a small coin hoard was discovered at the site of ancient

(Shaikhan Dehri) in

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

. The hoard contained a

tetradrachm The tetradrachm () was a large silver coin that originated in Ancient Greece. It was nominally equivalent to four drachmae. Over time the tetradrachm effectively became the standard coin of the Antiquity, spreading well beyond the borders of the ...

minted in

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

c. 500-480 BC, together with a number of local types as well as silver cast ingots. The Athens coin is the earliest known example of its type to be found so far to the east.CNG Coins
/ref> The Mir Zakah hoards offered hundreds of thousands of examples, punched and stamped bars and coins, manufactured between the late 5th century BC, and late 1st century AD.

Daniel Schlumberger Daniel Théodore Schlumberger (19 December 1904 – 21 October 1972) was a French archaeologist and Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Strasbourg and later Princeton University. Biography After having been invited by ...

also considers that punch-marked bars, similar to the many punch-marked bars found in northwestern India, initially originated in the Achaemenid Empire, rather than in the Indian heartland: According to

Joe Cribb Joe Cribb (born 1948) is a numismatist, specialising in Asian coinages, and in particular on coins of the Kushan Empire. His catalogues of Chinese silver currency ingots, and of ritual coins of Southeast Asia were the first detailed works on the ...

, Indian punch-marked coins go back to the mid-4th century BC or slightly earlier, and actually started with the punch-marked coinage of the Achaemenids in the

Kabul Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...

area.

Mauryan Period (322–185 BC) and Post Mauryan periods

During the

Mauryan The Maurya Empire was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in South Asia with its power base in Magadha. Founded by Chandragupta Maurya around c. 320 BCE, it existed in loose-knit fashion until 185 BCE. The primary sourc ...

period, punch-marked coins continued to be issued in large quantities. Similarly, the coinage of the Mauryan Empire was an example of the punch-marked coinage of Magadha. Each coin contained on average 50–54 grains of silver depending on wear and 32

ratti Ratti may refer to: * Ratti (unit), traditional Indian unit of mass measurement * Ratti Gali Lake, an alpine glacial lake located in Neelum Valley, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan * Ratti (surname), Italian surname * Ratti family, Italian family {{disambigu ...

s in weight, and earlier coins are flatter than later coins. Punches on these coins count to 450 different types with the most common the

sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

and six-armed symbols, and various forms of geometrical patterns, circles, wheels, human figures, various animals, bows and arrows, hills and trees etc. In the North, following the fall of the

Maurya Empire The Maurya Empire was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in South Asia with its power base in Magadha. Founded by Chandragupta Maurya around c. 320 BCE, it existed in loose-knit fashion until 185 BCE. The primary source ...

and the increased influence of the

Greco-Bactrians The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom () was a Greek state of the Hellenistic period located in Central-South Asia. The kingdom was founded by the Seleucid satrap Diodotus I Soter in about 256 BC, and continued to dominate Central Asia until its fall ar ...

and

Indo-Greeks The Indo-Greek Kingdom, also known as the Yavana Kingdom, was a Hellenistic-era Greek kingdom covering various parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan and northwestern India. The term "Indo-Greek Kingdom" loosely describes a number of var ...

, punch-marked coins were replaced by cast die-struck coins, as visible in the

Post-Mauryan coinage of Gandhara The Post-Mauryan coinage of Gandhara refers to the period of coinage production in Gandhara, following the breakup of the Maurya Empire (321-185 BCE). When Mauryan central power disappeared, several small independent entities were formed, which sta ...

. Punch marked coins are mentioned in the

Manu Smriti The ''Manusmṛti'' (), also known as the ''Mānava-Dharmaśāstra'' or the Laws of Manu, is one of the many legal texts and constitutions among the many ' of Hinduism. Over fifty manuscripts of the ''Manusmriti'' are now known, but the earli ...

(c. 200 BC - 200 AD), and

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

Jataka The ''Jātaka'' (Sanskrit for "Birth-Related" or "Birth Stories") are a voluminous body of literature native to the Indian subcontinent which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. Jataka stories we ...

(c. 300 BC - 400 AD), circulating in the North until approximately the beginning of the first century AD, but lasted three centuries longer in the South, i.e. until about 300 AD. * Shurasena *

Surashtra Kathiawar (), also known as Saurashtra, is a peninsula in the south-western Gujarat state in India, bordering the Arabian Sea and covering about . It is bounded by the Kutch district in the north, the Gulf of Kutch in the northwest, and by the ...

** Early coins of India (400 BC – 100 AD) were made of

and

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

, and bore animal and plant symbols on them.Allan & Stern (2008)

References

External links