HINDU COINS.

From the coins of Bactria a transition is easily traced through the dark period of the Indo-Scythian or Buddhist dynasty, (to which numerous coins have been allotted upon such degree of internal evidence as their appearance affords,) to the coins of the IIindú princes of Central India, Andhra, Rájputána, Kanauj, Indraprastha, and perhaps Magadhá or Bahár. I have, on a former occasion, ventured to doubt whether any native coin, properly so called, had circulation in India anterior to the

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1 Page 4 supra, and Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' I. 394. [I annex extracts from an elaborate note of Burnouf's bearing on this subject. "Or il fallait, pour obtenir les faveurs de Vâsavadattâ, donner cinq cents Puranas. Je ne demande pas. un seul Kârchâpana." Introd. 147. (Note.)-"Il importe, en premier lieu, de remarquer que le Purâna dont il est parlé dans le texte, est une monnaie de poids, c'est-à-dire une monnaie appartenante à un système purement indien, et antérieur, conséquemment, à l'influence qu'a exercée dans l'Inde le système monétaire des Grecs de la Bactriane. Or dans le système auquel appartient le Purâna, qui est un poids d'argent, l'unité est le Raktikâ, c'est-à-dire le poids d'une graine rouge de Gundja ou de l'Abrus precatorius. On comprend qu'on

arriverait à un résultat beaucoup plus élevé, s'il s'agissait d'un poids d'or; mais l'emploi du mot Purâna nous interdit absolument cette supposition, puisque le Purana est positivement donné pour un poids d'argent. Quoi qu'il en soit, les termes de Mâcha' et de 'Machaka' appartiennent, comme celui de 'Raktikâ,' à ce système de poids fournis par la nature, et très-problablement fort ancien, qui caractérise les époques de civilisation encore peu avancée; car le Mâcha est un haricot de l'espèce dite Phaseolus radiatus. Le texte de notre légende parle encore d'une autre monnaie, le Kârchâpana, qui est, suivant Colebrooke (Asiatic Researches,' v. 93) égal à 80 Raktikâs de cuivre, c'est-à-dire à 175 grains troy anglais, ou, suivant Wilson, à 176 grains. Quoique le Kârchâpana puisse être aussi bien un poids d'or et d'argent que de cuivre, l'ensemble du texte me semble prouver qu'il y faut voir un Kârchapana de cuivre, car la courtisane veut certainement dire qu'elle ne demande pas même à Upagupta, la plus petite somme."-Introduction à l'histoire du Buddhisme indien, p. 597. Professor Wilson enters into the question more fully. His summary

is necessarily of the highest value in the citation of Hindú authorities, thought he numismatic and other evidence might, perhaps, have warranted a more decisive expression of opinion in favor of the antiquity of Indian coinages.] "Doubts have been entertained of the existence of a native Indian currency prior to the introduction of the art of coining by the Greeks of Bactria (Prinsep: Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' i. 384, supra cit.) and certainly there are strong grounds for admitting the probability that the fabrication of money in India originated with them. There are some considerations, however, which militate against it. That the want of a specific denomination of money is not incompatible with a metallic medium of exchange, we know from the practice of the Chinese and IndoChinese nations to the present day, amongst whom certain weights of gold and silver, sometimes bearing a stamped attestation of their standard value, take the place of coined money. This may have been the case also with the Hindus; and as the different tables, which are given in their law-books, of the several values of gold

incursion of Alexander. In none of the ancient books1 of the Hindús is mention made of coined money. The word 'suvarna,' or 'gold,' which occurs frequently in the Puránas, is supposed to mean a lump of gold of a fixed weight, such as is still current in Ava and China. Colebrooke states, on the authority of Manu and other authors, that the 'suvarna' (karsha, arsha, or tolaka) was equal to sixteen máshas. If the másha was, as now, about 17.4 grains only, this would certainly make the Suvarna small enough to admit of a doubt whether it

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and silver refer to weight, not to number (Colebrooke Asiatic Researches,' v.), it is likely that the currency of the country consisted chiefly, if not exclusively, of lumps of gold and silver not bearing any impression, until the Hindús had learned the usefulness of money from their Bactrian neighbours, and from their foreign commerce, especially with Rome. At the same time it seems likely that they had a sort of stamped coin even before the Greek invasion. In all parts of India numerous small pieces of silver have been found in the ground-some oblong, some square, some round-and which were, no doubt, once employed as measures of value (Asiatic Researches,' xvii. 596, pl. v.)" (See Art. X. pl. xx.) "They commonly, but not always, bear upon them rude symbols of the sun and moon, a star or nondescript mark, to which it is not easy to assign a definite import, but the application of which gives to them the character of a coinage. The style of these pieces and the rudeness of their execution, are in favour of their ancient date, as it is scarcely probable that after the art of fabricating money had been introduced, the making of such coins would have been continued. They would have preceded also, it may be supposed, the law which inflicts punishment on the falsifier, not only of the standard, but of the fabric and the stamp of the coin as has been noticed above (Ariana Antiqua,' page 364, note). Again, it is well known that the chief punishments in the penal code of the Hindús are fines, and it is difficult to reconcile such a penalty with a mere weight of metal. The 100, 500, and 1,000 Panas, which are the several series of mulets in Manu, might possibly have intended so many pieces, or their equivalent in weight in some other metal; the Pana being either a copper weight or a coin of about 200 grains, which may be considered as that of the native Pice or copper coins. That it was a coin is so understood apparently by the commentator on the text of the 'Yajnawalkya,' in which he explains the word karsha or pana to denote a fabricated form of copper (támrasya vikára), and a text of Vichaspati is quoted in law-books, which defines a Karsha or Pana to be a stamped coin. That it had come to signify a piece of money, there is no doubt, although at what period is open to conjecture. It is not unlikely that Hindú artists were employed by some of the Greek princes.”— ‘Ariana Antiqua,' page 403.-E.T.]

1 The Raja Tarangini,' a comparatively modern work, mentions the dínár, a Persian gold coin. [The term occurs also in the Sanchí inscription of Chandra Gupta. See Art. X. infrá.]

2 Asiatic Researches,' V., 93.

3 See Mr. Ravenshaw's note, 'Journal of the Asiatic Society,' II., page 266.

4 Major Wilford, and many as inveterate etymologists, might have derived our English sovereign' from this word, had it chanced to have been current at an earlier period than is assigned by our mint annals for its introduction, namely, Edward IV.'s reign, A.D. 1489.

did not bear some stamp: on the other hand, small lumps of gold called 'phátang,' of a smaller weight and value, and without a stamp, are still brought from the hills, and passed as cash in the purchase of goods in the plains. Again, the great analogy which is observed between the earliest Indian coins introduced to our notice by modern research, and those of the Macedonian colonists, is a very strong argument in favor of the supposition that the art of die-cutting was introduced at that period; and the employment of Greek workmen may reasonably account for the continuance of Greek legends where, otherwise, they would have been little expected. A further direct and incontestable proof of their connection is derived from the similarity of the monograms or symbols visible on most of them. I have inserted, at the foot of the present plate, such of these as occur in the coins before us. Most of them may be found on the Greck civic coins of the Hunterian cabinet at Glasgow; those upon the genuine Greek coins are evidently cyphers or compounds of Greek letters; either numerals marking the date, or initials of persons connected with the mint.

Monogram 1 appears upon a coin of Demetrius of Syria (see plate v.), and may be compounded of A T, symbolical of Antioch, the place of coinage it is No. 67 of Combe's Hunterian Catalogue. Monogram 2, on Alexander's coin (53 of Combe) may be A, and may stand for one of the numerous cities of this monarch's name. The third (plate ii., fig. 1) is evidently formed of the Greek letters P E, being, perhaps, the date (105 of the Syrian era, or 206 B.C.)' subjoined by A, betokening the locality.

The next four (4, 5, 6, 7) occur in the coins of Apollodotus and Menander (86, 216, and 326 of Combe). Colonel Tod supposes tho latter two and fig. 9 to be formed of numeral letters, but the combina

If so, this coin should belong to Antiochus the Great, and not Antiochus Theos, as supposed in page 25, from his cognomen, Epiphanes,

tion of units is pronounced to be inadmissible. 8 and 9 appear on the coin of the last Bactrian monarch, the great king.' They are not found in Combe; but the latter may be a combination of the letters O, T, H and E. Nos. 10, 11, and 12, having four prongs and the ring below cut open, belong to the supposed Kanishka coin, and all the coins of the rájá and bull, and rájá and elephant type. These can no longer be interpreted as letters, though evidently imitated from the foregoing. Monogram 13 occurs in one of Colonel Tod's coins of the same class, with the running figure (13 of 3rd series); but it may probably be an imperfect impression of the foregoing symbol. From monogram 12 to the lozenge form of 14 is but a slight transition, and thus we pass to a wholly different class of coins, ascribed by Colonel Tod to the Pándu dynasty, because the inscriptions are in the same character which is found wherever the Pándu authority existed; in the Caves, and on the rocks of Junagarh, Girnar, on the pillar of victory in Maiwár, and on the columns of Indraprastha (Dihlí) and Prayága (Allahábád).

[I have already had occasion to refer to a paper by Major Cunningham, entitled, 'An attempt to explain some of the monograms found upon the Grecian Coins of Ariana and India,' published in vol. viii of the Numismatic Chronicle' (London, 1846). I have now again to advert to it, in somewhat more detail, in connexion with this, the earliest attempt at the explanation of these symbols by James Prinsep.

The general subject of mint monograms is necessarily a difficult one, and, until lately, was rather shirked and avoided by numismatic writers; in the present instance, it will be seen to be unusually complicated in the later Bactrian coinages, not only by the use of two distinct alphabetical series, Greek and Arian, but in the multiplicity of the signs, and their frequent association to the number of four and five varieties on single specimens of the subordinate series of coins!

Since Major Cunningham's Essay was written,' however, not only has great progress been made in the comparative geography of India and Central Asia; but the special question

1 [In this and in many similar instances of works composed in India, it would be more accurate to say, Since the date of the publication of the authorities the author had an opportunity of consulting,'-in preference to defining relative priority in the ordinary European phraseology.]

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of the interpretation of mint monograms has received more attention and illustration from the learned in Europe. And now-when we are fully prepared to admit the accuracy of the verification of the monogrammatic expression of the mints of Alexander the Great in the western section of his dominions; and are equally ready to recognise the Parthian employment of combinations of Greek letters to typify the mints of Drangia and Chorasmia, besides carrying on the evidence of the abbreviated definition of the local mints, in the Pehlví character, down to the date of the Arab denomination in Persia-we can scarcely hesitate to concede the probability that the Bactrian Greeks observed some such custom. The obstacles to any conclusive assignment of the purport of these symbols, consist not alone in the endless transpositions to which the various letters of any given monogram of ordinary complication may be subjected, but in the parallel practice, which, we have reason to believe, obtained, of inscribing on the currency the names of mint masters and others connected with this fiscal branch of State Government, couched in similarly combined literal ciphers. This is not the place, however, to enter into any lengthened review of Major Cunningham's theory, or its subordinate application; but, having said thus much in acceptance of the general principle, and being prepared to say even more in praise of the labour and assiduity the author has bestowed on his task, I may be permitted to add, that he appears to have pushed his theory into needlessly severe trials, in his, perhaps, laudable anxiety to prove its complete comprehensiveness.—E T.]

These coins are decidedly the most ancient of Hindú type which are known, and yet, being of pure gold, they are generally in a perfect state of preservation, and the

1 [Ex. gr. 'Aradus.' Mionnet, Supp. iii. 198. 'Odessus,' ibid, 206.] Lindsay, suprâ cit.]

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Unpublished Parthian (British Museum) Monogram, XOP.]

4Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' xiii.]