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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ JULY, 1923
Alexander's victorious progress through the Panjab and Sind in 325 B.C. produced little effect on the Indian coinage. A few cast coins usually of copper or bronze, inscribed with characters dating from about 300 B.C., are found in Northern India. Though our information of coinage in the Mauryan India is imperfect, we have some references to Mauryan coinage in the Arthasāstra.1 The bulk of the payments seems to have been made in the copper kārsha and silver pana. No specimen of a silver pana is known, but it was presumably of the same weight as a copper karsha, namely about 146 grains. The "punch-marked " pieces impure silver (purāņa or dharana), which are known to have been in ordinary use in the author's time, were struck to a standard of about 56 grains. Possibly this silver paņa may have been only a money of account. The value of a silver paņa, which presumably was much alloyed, like the "punch-marked " coins, may be taken as not far from a shilling. Gold coins were not unknown. We have no other information of the coinage of Mauryan India.
The history of Indian coinage during the post-Mauryan period—which ends for us with the beginning of the Christian era-can be conveniently dealt with under the two heads, viz., (i) indigenous and (ii) foreign.
(i) For the history of the indigenous coinage we must go to the Sukraniti. Several references in Sukraniti point to gold and silver, specially the former being the "measure" or standard of value. Their function as the medium of exchange is also frequently indicated. The use of gold in both the functions of money as the standard of value as well as the medium of exchange is referred to in the following lines :
(1) That man is to be in charge of jewels, gold, silver and coins, who can distinguish their values by the weight, shape, lustre, colour and resemblances.
(2) Houses are meant for gold, jewels, silver nishkas or coins, etc. (3) Dravya (lit., goods) is silver, gold and copper coined for commercial purposes.
Like the sun and moon, gold and silver have been mentioned in Sukraniti almost as twins. References to the two metals have been made together both explicitly as well as implicitly. Thus our information about silver is nearly the same as about gold, whether as regards (1) the uses as money, i.e., standard of value and medium of exchange, (2) or as regards the circulation as legal tender. The Sukra statesmen have supplied us with parallel facts on all these points.
It may be noticed here that both gold and silver seem to be mediums of exchange and "legal tender" in the Sukraniti. Prices are mentioned sometimes in terms of gold, often in terms of silver. "Eight ratis make one māsa, ten māsas make one suvarna. Five times that suvarna make eighty silver kärshakas." The suvarna and kärshaka are gold and silver coins respectively and one suvarna is equivalent to sixteen kärshakas." The same rates are also noted by Sukra as determining the comparative value of gold and silver as bullion or ingot. Thus "the value of gold " was sixteen times that of silver.
“It would be thus evident," says Benoy-kumar Sarkar," that both nominal or 'face' value and intrinsic or 'real' value of the coins were the same. There was no law artificially regulating the price of the coins and the precious metals. The market value of the metals (as indicated in the relation between gold and silver as bullion) was maintained in the currency.
Copper coins were also extensively used. A pana was a piece of copper coined by the king weighing ten māsas. Excluding gold and silver, copper had the lowest value in the realm. "The value of silver was 80 times that of copper." 1 Trans. R. Shama Sastri.
2 Trans. B. K. Sarkar.
