Fig. 18.—Helioklês.
The following remarks on the ancient coinage of India are extracted from two papers contributed by Mr. W. Theobald to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Nos. III. and IV. of 1890, under the title Notes on some of the Symbols found on the Punch-marked Coins of Hindustan:—“The punch-marked coins,” he says, “though presenting neither kings’ names, dates, nor inscriptions of any sort, are nevertheless very interesting not only from their being the earliest money coined in India, and of a purely indigenous character, but from their being stamped with a number of symbols, some of which we can with the utmost confidence declare to have originated in distant lands and in the remotest antiquity. The punch used to produce these coins differed from the ordinary dies which subsequently came into use in that they covered only one of the many symbols usually seen on their pieces. Some of these coins were round and others of a rectangular form. The great bulk of these coins is silver (but some copper, and others gold). Some coins are formed of a copper blank thickly covered with silver before receiving the impression of the punches, and this contemporary sophistication of the currency is found to occur subsequently in various Indian coinages, in the Graeco-Bactrian of the Panjâb, the Hindu kings of Cabul, etc.” Mr. Theobald thinks we may regard these pieces as a portion of those very coins (or identical in all respects) which the Brahman Chânakya, the adviser of Chandragupta, with the view of raising resources, converted, by recoining each Kahapana into eight, and amassed eighty kotis of Kahapanas (or Kârshâpanas). Mr. Theobald holds that the square coins, both silver and copper, struck by the Greeks for their Indian possessions belong to no Greek national type whatever, but are obviously a novelty adopted in imitation of an indigenous currency already firmly established in the country. He adduces by way of proof the testimony of Curtius, where he states that Taxiles offered Alexander eighty talents of coined silver (signati argenti). What other, he asks, except these punch-marked coins could these pieces of coined silver have been? The name, he then adds, by which these coins are spoken of in the Buddhist Sutras about 200 B.C. was “purana” = old, whence General Cunningham argues that the word old, as applied to the indigenous Karsha, was used to distinguish it from the new and more recent issues of the Greeks. Mr. Vincent A. Smith writes to the same effect. He considers the artistic coins to be of Greek origin, but holds that the idea of coining money, and the simple mechanical processes for rude coins, were not borrowed from the Greeks. It is, he thinks, impossible to prove that any given piece is older than Alexander, though some primitive coins may be older. The oldest Indian coins to which a date can be assigned are, in his opinion, those issued by Sôphytes, the contemporary of Alexander. The general adoption of Greek, or Graeko-Roman types of coinage, he assigns to the first century as a result of the Indo-Skythian invasions. Roman coins, it is well known, are found in all parts of India. In Indian writings the Roman dênârius appears in the form dînâra, and the Greek drachmê (which was about equivalent in value to the denarius) in the form dramma. The subject of the Indo-Greek coinage is discussed in A. v. Sallet’s Die Nachfolger Alexanders.
Fig. 19.—Apollodotos.
Note Ll.—An Aśôka Inscription
Transliteration.— ...... yu Ichha shavabhu .... shayama shamachaliyaṁ madava ti. Iyaṁ vu mu ...
Devânaṁ Piyeshâ ye dhaṁmavijaye she cha punâ ladhe Devânaṁ Pi ... cha
shaveshu cha ateshu a shashu pi yojanashateshu ata Atiyoge nâma Yona lâjâ palaṁ châ tenâ
Aṁtiyogenâ chatâli 4 lajâne Tulamaye nâma Aṁtekine nâma Makâ nâ ma Alikyashudale nâma, nichaṁ Choḍa-Paṁḍiyâ avam Taṁbapaṁniyâ hevameva hevamevâ
Hidâlâjâ. Viśa-Vaji-Yona-Kaṁbijeshu Nâbhake Nabhapaṁtishu Boja-Pitinikyeshu