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Jijñäsä
The two eighth century Prākrit works from Rajasthan, the Samarāiccakahā and Kuvalayamālā, draw a vivid picture of extensive overseas trade with Sri Lanka, China and South east Asia, which is confirmed by Sri Lankan, Chinese and Arab evidence.106 Detailed descriptions of centres of interregional trade and the large variety of goods exchanged at these centres occur in the Kuvalayamālā. One of these contexts describes the gathering of merchants of as many as eighteen different regions, Madhyadeśa, Magadha, Antarvedi, Kira, Dhakkas, Sindhu, Maru, Gurjaras, Lāta, Mālava, Karnātaka, Tāiya or Tājika, Kośala, Mahārāstra, Andhra and the Gollas, Khasa, Pārasa and Barbara people at one place.107 In this context it is significant that the Ahar inscription(Udaipur district) of 953 CE provides epigraphic evidence of merchants from the far-flung areas of Karnāta, Madhyadeśa, Lāta and Takka gathering in Rajasthan for trade. 108
Epigraphic as well as literary sources attest to the prevalence of a monetary exchange system. considered to be an important constituent of an urban economy. Evidence regarding the circulation of varmalāta coins in Bhinmāla, drammas at Goth-Mangalod and Kalyanpur, paņas as well as drammas at Kaman has been partially noted above. In addition, the Nisītha Cūrni of 676 CE specifically refers to the silver vammalāta or varmalāta coins of Bhillamāla as the current means of exchange. These have been attributed by Dasharatha Sharma to Varmalāta, a ruler of the Căpa dynasty ruling at Bhillamāla known to us from the Vasantgarh inscription of 625 CE and the Siśupälavadha of Māgha.
The Goth-Mangalod inscription of the time of Dhrūhlāņa, 608 CE, reveals that appreciably large quantities of it were in circulation. It records large individual donations made by six Brāhmaṇas, three giving as many as one hundred drammas each, and three others donating fifty, three hundred, and one hundred and fifty drammas respectively, besides collective grants of a sum of one thousand one hundred, and a sum of one hundred and twenty drammas made by other Brāhmaṇas . The eighth century Kalyanpur inscription records the grant of forty dramma coins (per month or year) made by a lady named Vonna, the wife of Kadachi, apparently a ruling chief, for the repair and maintenance of a Siva temple."
The Kaman inscription of 839 CE records that the local guilds of artisans, in consideration of an amount paid in advance to each one of them, stipulated payment of a permanent endowment, towards which each individual member was to pay one dramma every month. Asahāya, the commentator of the Nārada Smrti (eighth century CE), refers to a merchant taking a loan of ten thousand drammas." The evidence testifies that drammas were current in Rajasthan during the period from the seventh to ninth century CE and were used by different sections of society, including the Brāhmaṇas, merchants, artisans and ruling chiefs.
The drammas mentioned in the inscriptions have been identified with the actual coin-finds consisting of silver or billon (silver/copper alloy) coins of the Indo-Sassanian type, generally known as gadhaivā or gadahiyā coins, '14 current in Rajasthan from seventh century onwards. They follow the weight standard of the drachma, the Greek coin from which the term dramma was evidently derived. The site of Piplaj, fifteen miles to south-west of Kekadi in Ajmer, alone has yielded more than 3000 IndoSassanian coins, roughly assignable to the period 550-700 CE. The Upakeśagaccha pattävali associates the origin of the gadahiyā mudrā with Marwar-Bhinmal. Finds of coins of the IndoSassanian type bearing the names of the early Guhila rulers of Mewar, Guha (c.sixth century CE), Bhoja. Silāditya, Bhartrpatta and Simha have been reported."
