Janapada Coins The study of the relative chronology of these coins has successfully established that the first punch-marked coins initially only had one or two punches, with the number of punches increasing over time. 19th-century proposals suggesting an origin from as early as 1000 BC, independent of the introduction of
coins in Asia Minor, are "no longer given any credence". According to
E. J. Rapson, the earliest punch-marked coins were "karshapana" produced by early Indian kingdoms and tribes before foreign influence. The earliest coins in the subcontinent were bent bar coins with punched impressions. Mahajanpadas were issuing coins called "satamana". The
Kuru kingdom minted punched coins, evidenced by their discovery in excavations of the Babyal Hoard near
Sugh Ancient Mound, in present day Haryana. The coins of the Babyal Hoard had a
triskelion-like design punched into them. The
Gandhara Janapada issued stamped bent bar coins prior to the Achaemenid Era. These coins were found mixed along with standard Persian and Greek coins (likely still circulating during Achaemenid rule) in the
Bhir Mound. In his work
Aṣṭādhyāyī (350 BCE),
Pāṇini categorized ancient Indian coins as
Karshapana, either marked or unmarked (punched), and punch-marked coins called
Aahat. Several of these coins had a single symbol. For example, coins from
Saurashtra had a humped bull, while those of Dakshin
Panchala had a
swastika. Others, like from
Magadha, had several symbols. These coins were of a standard weight but irregular shape, formed by cutting up
silver bars and shaving the edges to the desired weight.
Achaemenid and Greek coinage (6th century onward) , c.350 BC. Silver coins were being produced in the
Achaemenid Satrapy of
Gandāra by the mid-4th century BC. As noted by Plutarch,
Taxiles (Ambhi) of Taxila exchanged coined tribute with
Alexander the Great. Coin finds in the
Kabul hoard (c. 380 BC),
Mir Zakah hoards (c. 100 AD),
Bhir Mound (c. 300 BC), or the
Shaikhan Dehri hoard near
Pushkalavati included
Achaemenid coins as well as many
Greek coins from the 5th and 4th centuries BC. This shows that the coins were circulating at least as far as the
Indus during the reign of the
Achaemenids (549 - 330 BCE), who controlled the areas as far as
Gandhara. In 2007, a small coin hoard was discovered at the site of ancient
Pushkalavati (Shaikhan Dehri) in
Pakistan. The hoard contained a
tetradrachm minted in
Athens c. 500-480 BC, along with a number of local coins and cast silver ingots. The Athens coin is the earliest known example of its type to be found so far to the east. The Mir Zakah hoards offered several hundred thousand examples of punched and stamped bars and coins, manufactured between the late-5th century BC and late-1st century AD.
Daniel Schlumberger believes that punch-marked bars, similar to the many punch-marked bars found in northwestern India, initially originated in the Achaemenid Empire, rather than in the Indian heartland: According to
Joe Cribb, Indian punch-marked coins date to the mid-4th century BC or slightly earlier, and began with the punch-marked coinage of the Achaemenids in the
Kabul/
Gandhara area. with earlier coins being flatter than later coins. There are 450 punch types, the most common being the
sun and six-armed symbols, and including various forms of geometrical patterns, circles, wheels, human figures, animals, bows and arrows, and hills and trees. In the North, following the fall of the
Maurya Empire and the increased influence of the
Greco-Bactrians and
Indo-Greeks, punch-marked coins were replaced by cast die-struck coins, as visible in the
Post-Mauryan coinage of Gandhara. Punch marked coins are mentioned in the
Manu Smriti (c. 200 BC - 200 AD), and
Buddhist Jataka (c. 300 BC - 400 AD) as circulating in the North until approximately the beginning of 1 AD, and lasting three centuries longer in the South until about 300 AD. •
Shurasena •
Surashtra • Early coins of India (400 BC – 100 AD) were made of
silver and
copper, and bore animal and plant symbols on them. ==See also==