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CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES
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the Maurya rulers issued coins in his name, so also perhaps the Sungas. The only coins rather the earliest, found circulated in ancient India, are the so-called Punchmarked coins. The same were used in the Sunga period. Can we infer from this that the same were continued by Khāravela also ? If so, then I shall place Khāravela nearer to the period of the Mauryas and the Sungas and not very far removed from them."
As a matter of course, we should have no difficulty in accepting Dr. Katare's suggestion. But the possibility of existence of Khāravela's coins cannot be ruled out entirely. There have been no excavations worth the name in that part of the country. Future excavations might yield some evidence. Secondly, surmising that Khāravela also issued Punch-marked coins, and hence he may be placed nearer to the Mauryas and the Sungas, may not be acceptable, since we find that the use of Punch-marked coins did not stop in the second Century B. C., but continued for a much longer period. Bhandarkari has equated Purch-marked coins with Kārshāpaņas, so frequentlymentioned in ancient Indian literature and there are references to these traceable in the Sātavāhana inscriptions. At Besanagar, Bhandarkar found Punch-marked coins on all early sites containing strata reaching down to the fourth Century A.D. Later on, the Brihaspati Smțiti, and also the Kātyāyana Smțiti, refers to Anạika as another name for Kārskāpaņa, which can be dated in the seventh Century A. D. An inscription, originally found at Bijapur (in Jodhpura) and dated in 997 A. D., while recording the benefactions to a Jaina temple, speaks of a grant of one Kārsha for every ghadā (pitcher) at every
1. Carmichael Lectures, Ancient Indian Numismatics, pp. 91-95. 2. Ibid, p. 185. 3. EI, Vol. X, pp 24 and 26-27 ; Qtd Bhandarkar, Ibid.
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