The Story of Indian Money VII Coinage of Western Kshatrapas

During the period of Kushan domination of the North-Western region, the Central, Western and Southern parts of India came under the sway of the descendants of the Shakas called Western Kshatrapas (by modern historians) in the Central and West India and the Satavahana dynasty in the West and South India.

The Western Kshatrapas (35-405 A.D.) ruled parts of Saurashtra, Kutch, Malwa, Sindh beginning in the year 35 A.D. The first two rulers, Aghudaka and Bhumaka continued the Indo-Greek style of coinage with bilingual scripts of corrupted Greek and Brahmi along with Greek symbols like Arrow and Thunderbolt and Greek deities on their coins.
Later rulers beginning with Nahapana (r.119-124 A.D.) issued a distinct silver coinage with his portrait. Nahapana had an epic struggle with the Satavahana ruler, Gautamiputra Satakarni who defeated Nahapana in 124 A.D. and counterstruck his coins with Satavahana imagery.
Nahapana’s territories were recovered in 130 A.D by another Kshatrapa ruler, Chastana who began his reign with a new coinage that was emulated by all his successors till the end of the dynasty in 4th century A.D. after its conquest by Chandra Gupta II, the Gupta emperor who conquered Western India.
The coinage has a typical portrait of the king facing right with corrupt Greek legends on the obverse and the reverse has a three-arched hill surmounted by a crescent and a wavy line below and a sun on its right. The Brahmi inscription is in Sanskrit language replacing Prakrit which was used on all earlier coins. Thus, the Western Kshatrapas despite their foreign origin, signalled their total integration with Indian culture by using Sanskrit on their coinage!
The Western Kshatrapas progressed to using dates in Shaka era beginning in 78 A.D. for the first time under the Kshatrapa ruler Rudrasimha I making it the first Indian coinage to do so and hence its exact dating is possible.
The Western Kshatrapa coins also use two types of titles viz. Kshatrapa and Mahakshatrapa depending on the King’s stature/achievements and detail the patrilineage of the king.
For e.g. Chastana’s illustrious grandson, Rudradaman I (r. 130-150 A.D.) issued a coin with the title read as “Rajno Kshatrapasa Jayadamaputrasa Mahakshatrapasa Rudradamasa’ in Brahmi script translated as Kshatrapa Jayadaman’s son Mahakshatrapa Rudradaman. The titles, Mahakshatrapa and Kshatrapa are also used to denote the king and the crown prince as many kings have coins with both titles issued by them. These features have thus helped numismatists trace the exact lineage of the Western Kshatrapas with exact dates.

However, the most interesting aspect of Western Kshatrapa coinage is the ‘counter-marking war’ between Western Kshatrapa Nahapana and Satavahana ruler Gautamiputra Satakarni in the 2nd century (c. A.D. 118-124) when Gautamiputra Satakarni seized Nashik region in Maharashtra from Nahapana and counter-marked his coinage in the area with the symbol of the Satavahanas, the Ujjaini symbol (a set of four circles joined by a cross at the centre) to mark his conquest over the Shakas! These coins were found in a very large hoard found in Jogalthembi in Nashik district making it clear that the area was under Satavahana domination

Featured: Top 2 Images: Nahapana's copper coin
Middle 2 Images: Mahakshatrapa Rudrasena II Silver coin
Bottom 2 Images: Coin of Nahapana counterstruck by Satavahana Gautamiputra Satakarni
Images courtesy: American Numismatic Society, New York

(To be continued)

The coinage of foreign invading tribes (135 B.C. – 250 A.D.) Part VI

The Indo-Greeks declined first in Bactria because of hordes of foreigners like Shakas (Indo-Scythians), Pahlavas (Indo-Parthians) and Kushans who took over their territories. The Shakas snatched Bactria from its last Bactro-Greek ruler, Heliocles around 135 B.C. and later spread to the Indian territories of the Indo-Greeks. Two lines of Shaka invaders are known from their coins in India, one called Vonones ruling Baluchistan (Gadrosia) and Kandahar (Arachosia) and the other dynasty under Maues (Moga?) around Indus region in Punjab.
Maues issued coins in silver and copper with Indian and Greek images like a copper coin with elephant’s head on obverse and a Greek symbol, Caduceus on the reverse. He introduced elements of his nomadic past by introducing a silver coin with the image of the king on a horse with spear that became the prototype of all nomadic coinage issued later.

The Kushans rose from a Central Asian tribe called Yuezhi by the Chinese sources and lorded over a huge kingdom stretching from Bactria to as far as Mathura in North India. The Kushans began their tryst with India under Kujula Kadphises (r. 30-80 A.D.) around 45-60 A.D.
Kujula issued a coinage in copper on the lines of last Indo-Greek ruler of India, Hermaeus with the title ‘Koshano’. He introduced a distinct coin with images of an Indian bull and a Bactrian double-humped camel with Kharosthi and Bactrian legends. He was briefly succeeded by his son/successor, Vima Takto (80-90 A.D.) who issued a nameless coinage with the title ‘Soter Megas’ (Great saviour).
However, his successor, Vima Kadphises (90-100 A.D.) changed the paradigm of Indian coinage by introducing gold coinage for the first time. His coinage, probably fashioned after Roman gold coinage pouring into India through Indo-Roman trade, was issued as double dinara, dinara, half dinara and so on. The coins portray the king as an elderly stocky bearded man dressed in a long coat with huge boots in various poses like seated on a low couch or cross-legged on a lump of clouds/rocks or standing at a sacrificial altar or riding a horse carriage. Vima Kadphises’ coins feature the first images of Shiva with his bull, Nandi on the reverse with Kharosthi inscriptions.
He was succeeded by the most famous Kushana ruler, Kanishka I (100-127 A.D.?) who was content with being portrayed in the ‘standing-sacrificer’ pose but used images of Indo-Aryan, Greek, Iranian and even Sumero-Elamite deities, demonstrating wide syncretism in his religious beliefs. Kanishka's coins began his reign by issuing coins with Greek deities with Greek inscriptions.
His later coins use the Bactrian language with a corrupted Greek script (using the letter Ϸ to represent sh as in the word 'Kushan' and 'Kanishka') and the Greek deities were replaced by Persian deities. Later he included Indian deities like Lakshmi (called Ardoksho, a Bactrian name) Shiva (Oesho ~ Eeshwar) , Parvati, Karthikeya (Mahaseno) and Buddha (Boddho) on his coins and issued them from his twin capital cities Purushpura (modern Peshawar) and Mathura which were under Kanishka’s direct rule.
Kanishka’s successors Huvishka I and Vasudeva I continued his style of coinage till the Kushan dynasty was routed by local rulers at the beginning of the third century. The Kushans were thus responsible for the introduction of gold coins into the sub-continent with richer imagery of both the kings and deities that inspired later rulers.

The Story of Indian Money V

The most important interaction of Indian civilisation in the Mauryan and post-Mauryan era was with the Seleucid Empire whose founder Seleucus Nikator (r. 305 B.C. - 281 B.C.) was a general (Diadochi) under Alexander the Great. He took over large parts of Alexander's domains after the latter's death and founded his own vast empire covering the Eastern parts of the Macedonian Empire in 305 B.C.
Seleucus also came in conflict with the first Indian Emperor, Chandragupta Maurya in the North-Western part of the Indian sub-continent when he was defeated by the young Indian emperor who had to be appeased with a Greek bride.
The Seleucid Empire covered a vast area stretching over the Near East and regions of the Asian part of the earlier Achaemenid Persian Empire. At the height of its power, it included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir and parts of Pakistan.
However, the Seleucids were reduced to a minor role by the rise of the Romans in Europe and the Parthians in the East under Mithridates I when they were reduced to a small area around modern Syria.

The Seleucids continued the Hellenistic traditions of coinage which featured the image of the king on the obverse with the image of Greek deities on the reverse. I came across this coin in the Todywalla Auctions' collection which was initially attributed to Alexander the Great with the legend 'BASILEUS ALEXANDROU' in Greek script.
However the reverse image of the deities was very unique with the Toddywalla coin having the image of Zeus holding Nike, the God of Victory in contrast to Alexander of Macedon's coins with the image of Hercules holding an eagle.
Hence, I deduced that the coin had to be Seleucid which led me to consult Ms. Amelia of the British Museum who opined that it was a tetradrachm issued by Alexander II Zabinas II of the Seleucid Empire.
Zabinas was a false Seleucid who claimed to be an adoptive son of Antiochus VII Sidetes, but in fact seems to have been the son of an Egyptian merchant named Protarchus. Antioch, Apamea, and several other cities, disgusted with the tyranny of Demetrius, acknowledged the authority of Alexander. He was used as a pawn by the Egyptian king Ptolemy VIII Tryphon, who introduced Zabinas as a means of getting to the legitimate Seleucid king Demetrius II, who supported his sister Cleopatra II against him in the complicated dynastic feuds of the latter Hellenistic dynasties.[1]

Zabinas managed to defeat Demetrius II, who fled to Tyre and was killed there, and thereafter ruled parts of Syria (128 BC-123 BC), but soon ran out of Egyptian support and was in his turn was defeated by Demetrius' son Antiochus VIII Grypus.

Zabinas fled to the Seleucid capital Antiochia, where he plundered several temples. Interestingly, he is said to have joked about melting down a statuette of the goddess of victory Nike which was held in the hand of a Zeus statue, saying "Zeus has given me Victory". Enraged by his impiety the Antiochenes cast Zabinas out of the city. He soon fell into the hands of robbers, who delivered him up to Antiochus, by whom he was put to death, in 122 BC.
The name 'Zabinas' means "the purchased slave", and was applied to him, deprecatingly, in response to a report that he had been bought by Ptolemy as a slave.

The Indian link to Seleucids was through Diodotus I who revolted against the Seleucids and found the kingdom of Bactria in Central Asia in 250 B.C. which soon grew into the Indo-Greek kingdom stretching from Central Asia to modern Punjab between two clans of Indo-Greek dynasties.

Featured: Right Top Silver Tetradrachm of Alexander of Macedon with image of Hercules and the eagle Image Courtesy: Wikipedia

Centre Bottom: Silver Tetradrachm of Alexander II Zabinas with image of Zeus holding Nike on the reverse Image Courtesy: Todywalla Auctions

Story of Indian Money Part IV

Post-Mauryan period of Indo-Greek influence (180 B.C. – 55 B.C.)

The Mauryan Empire which ruled large parts of the Indian sub-continent as a central authority declined around 180 B.C. leading to the fragmentation of the country’s polity into successor states that were based on tribal allegiance, older clans, oligarchies and newer trade guild states.
However, another political development was the emergence of a strong Greek state called Bactria around 250 B.C. north of Hindu Kush which spread to North-western India around 180 B.C. under King Demetrius I. This led to the founding of a new kingdom referred as the ‘Indo-Greek Kingdom’ by modern historians.
The 30-odd Indo-Greek kings, who issued India’s first coinage based on Classical Greek coinage, are known by their coins only. Their coins were generally struck by employing the Western ‘die-striking’ technique and had the portrait of the ruler on the obverse with inscribed titles of the ruler along with the image of a Greek deity on the reverse.
Demetrius I issued a unique coin with his portrait with an elephant’s scalp on his head portraying after the subduing of the Indians under their local ruler, Sophagasegnus (Shubhagasena?) in Kabul valley in 180 B.C.
Demetrius went on to issue a bilingual coinage using Greek script on obverse and North-Western Indian script of Kharosthi on the reverse; making it the first Indian coin inscribed in a local Indian script. His successors, Agathocles and Pantaleon who ruled the kingdom jointly issued a bilingual coin using Greek and the North Indian script of Brahmi which was prevalent throughout the Indian sub-continent since Ashoka’s period when he used it on his famous pillars to issue his edicts on Buddhism throughout his realm.

The Indo-Greeks also introduced a new weighing system called the Attic system which used multiples of 4 grams instead of the ratti system. Their coins were more sophisticated and circular in shape; using real life portraits of the rulers in conjunction with images of deities to confer legitimacy on the rulers.

The Indo-Greek coinage influenced later Indian rulers to use portrait images and deity images to convey their religious beliefs to the common public. Agathocles issued a bilingual coin with the images of Vasudeva and Sankarshana (Krishna and Balarama) on either side making it the first Indian coin to feature Indian deities!
Thus, the Indo-Greek numismatic legacy lingered in the Indian sub-continent for a long time as later Indian kings used the Indo-Greek prototype of the portrait of the king on the obverse and a favoured deity on the reverse for their coinage inspired by the example of the Indo-Greeks who were in turn inspired by their Mediterranean counterparts.
The bilingual script on coinage was also adapted by later foreign rulers like the Kushans to convey their regal authority over their subjects in a vernacular language and script. This concept has prevailed till modern times as the coins of Republic of India have legends in both Devanagari used to write India’s national language Hindi and Roman for English!
Thus, the Indo-Greek period left an indelible mark upon the numismatic traditions of the Indian sub-continent long after the disappearance of the Indo-Greek kingdom.

Images: Left Obv: Menander's Portrait with Greek legend 'Basileus Soteroy Menander' 'King Saviour Menander'
Right Rev: Image of Zeus with thunderbolt and incomplete Kharosthi legend 'Maharajasa Tratarasa..

Image courtesy: National Museum, New Delhi, India

Story of Indian Money Part III

The Iron Age (Vedic, Post-Vedic and Early Buddhist era ~ 1500 B.C. - 500 B.C.)

The period following Harappan civilisation’s decline was the Iron Age period of early Vedic civilisation when the Rig Veda was first composed around 1500 B.C. on the banks of River Saraswati. The Vedic people were pastoralists by profession and hence the cow formed an important form of currency for storage of value and large exchanges like royal estate, donation to the Brahmans for Yagnas, etc. References to cow as wealth is seen in the multiple terms derived from the cow in the Vedic literature like Gou Puccha (lit. cow’s tail being handed to a new owner), Gowdhar (Village headman) Duhhitri (synonym for daughter and one who milks the cow), Gaavishthi (cattle raids by enemy tribes),etc.
Gou Puccha was the first reference to accounting in the Veda of commodities i.e. a king/priest’s wealth indicated by the number of Gou Pucchhas. This concept in combination to branding of cows was later extrapolated to the official stamping of coins for ensuring authenticity of coins issued by the state.
The later Vedas mention the use of gold and silver in form of Hiranya pinda and Rupakas for transactions. A verse in the Yajurveda mentions the sale of Soma (wine) against gold pieces called Candra (pl. Candrani) and its lower denominations called Pada meaning feet of the cow (equivalent to the quarter of a cow) and Safa meaning the hooves of the cow (equivalent to one-eighth of a cow). The later writings speak of other types of gold coins called the Nishka, Suvarna and Shatamana. However, no existing samples of these coins have been found leading to the inference that these coins were probably unstamped ingots of gold exchanged for their intrinsic value.

The late Vedic period (8th century B.C.-6th century B.C.) and early Buddhist period (6th century B.C. – 5th century B.C.) saw the rise of newer political units called the Janapadas (Jana ~ People Pada~ Foot) that rose in various parts of India and issued India’s first ever coinage in silver. Each Janapada issued a unique coinage with varied symbols punched on the coin as a symbol of its sovereignty. These coins are thus called ‘Punch Marked Coins’ by modern numismatists named after the unique technique of using multiple punches to strike various symbols on the coins.
The Janapadas merged into sixteen larger units referred to as Solasa Mahajanapadas in the Buddhist and Jain texts; these were Anga (Bengal and east Bihar) Ashmaka or Kuntala (modern Andhra Pradesh), Avanti (Ujjain), Chhedi (Bundelkhand), Dakshina and Uttar Panchala (the Gangetic Doab), Gandhara (N-W Afghanistan), Kamboja (Hindukush region), Kashi (Varanasi), Koshala (Ayodhya-Faizabad region), Kuru (Delhi and surrounding areas), Magadha (south Bihar and East Bengal), Matsya (modern Jaipur and Alwar districts of Rajasthan), Malla (modern Gorakhpur in eastern U.P. and parts of Nepal), Shurasena (Mathura region) and Vrijji (North Bihar).

The Punch-marked coins are found all over the country and each region issued a unique type of Punch-marked coin for circulation in its jurisdiction.
The Punch-marked coins were essentially pieces of silver cut from metal sheets, weighed and punched with particular symbols unique to the Janapada issuing it; hence these pieces were rectangular or square shaped. Additionally, Punch-marked coins were uninscribed in nature i.e. without written legends in any script to provide details of their exact origin.
For e.g. Gandhara Janapada in the North-West Afghanistan issued a very typical silver Punch-marked coin called the ‘Silver Bent Bar’ coin by modern numismatists that has a typical long bar of silver weighing around 11 grams with punch marks of a six-armed symbol called Shadachakra on the either ends of the obverse (‘heads’ end) side. Additionally the bar is slightly bent giving coin a concave surface on the obverse side.
Other Janapadas like Ashmaka/Kuntala (parts of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh) issued punch marks of a unique double-pulley symbol. Most of the coins have numerous symbols ranging from two to four stamped on its obverse sides. The reverse (‘tails’ end) side have no symbols except for small marks called ‘Shroff marks’ made by traders to authenticate the coin for general circulation.

The Punch-marked coins are referred as Karshapanas (Kahapanas in Pali) in Buddhist literature like Jataka tales and Jain literature of the ancient period. The most famous tale of Buddha’s foremost disciple Anathapindika, a merchant who purchased a garden called Jetavana for his Master by covering its entire floor with silver Kahapanas amounting to an astounding sum of eighteen crore rupees!
Interestingly, the Roman historian Quintus Curtius refers to presentation of 80 talents of stamped silver ‘signati argenti’ to Alexander by the Indian king Oomphis (Ambhi) signalling the presence of Indian silver currency during Alexander’s invasion of Indus region in 326 B.C.
The smaller units of Karshapana existed in binary denominations ranging from half to 1/32th part of Karshapana and are called Ardha Panas, Pada Pana, Dvi-Mashaka, Mashaka and Kakani. These lower units were minted with copper to reduce the inherent value of the currency. According to the Arthashastra, a labourer was paid a mashaka (1/16th Karshapana) as a day’s wages during the Mauryan period!

Thus, the period saw the actual use of precious metal as coins which began a new phase in Indian History. Trade and economy were boosted by the use of coins which were measurable units of exchange leading to increased prosperity and welfare. However, Indian coins were used by the very wealthy only as is evident from the large hoards of these punchmarked coins found through the length and breadth of the Indian subcontinent. Money thus finally acquired a definite form at the end of this period and progressively became a tool of state power.
These early coins are believed to have been issued by a large number of traders or their guilds initially; only later did the state evince an interest in controlling their issue.
The varieties of punchmarked coins point to a number of states called Mahajanapadas (Great People's states) which soon combined under the power of the Magadha Empire in 4th Century B.C. under the Mauryas. The Mauryan Imperial issues which are found all over the sub-continent till Mysore in South India have five punch marks (impressed symbols)in contrast to other local issues which have one to four punchmarks only. These imperial coins are more numerous and less damaged indicating a wider and later issuing by the authorities.
The coins may have been issued as early as eigth century B.C. but most possibly their issuing was around 5th century B.C. as suggested by numerous Buddhist and Jaina scriptures.

Thus, Punch marked coinage represents the earliest Indian coinage with their unique shapes and sizes attesting to an indigenous evolution as opposed to a Persian inspiration as suggested by numerous Western scholars.

The Story of Indian Money

The Story of Indian Money Part II

The Harappan era (Mature phase ~ 3500 B.C. – 1900 B.C.)

The Origins of Money are vitally linked to three important factors; one, the beginning of cities, and the second, trade including within the city and outside its environs.

The third and the most important factor was the beginning of Man’s ability to count objects and thus maintain accounts. The earliest form of writing is not historical or poetic or literary material but accounts of traders!

This is true of all ancient civilizations like the Sumerian, Indus (Harappan) or the Chinese where writing symbols were invented initially to maintain accounts of trade.

The next phase in the Indian sub-continent’s development was the beginning of the Harappan civilisation around 3500 B.C in the North-Western and Western region of the Indian sub-continent popularly dubbed as India’s first urbanisation era by modern historians.

The Harappan civilisation was indeed India’s first tryst with urban culture and international trade. The Harappan people traded with the Mesopotamian people extensively as evidenced by exchange of pottery, seals and other objects through middlemen from Dilmun (modern Bahrain).

The Harappans evolved newer scientific advances like metallurgical objects, exact weighing system, innovative ship-building techniques, cities with advanced municipal sewage systems and multi-storeyed brick houses; however, not much has been discovered about their exact medium of exchange for their ‘international’ transactions.

The theory that Harappan seals were currency has been discounted by eminent scholars. Alternatively, it has been suggested that the presence of huge ‘granaries’ (probably owned by the state) may have been the ‘storehouses of value and wealth’ in the Harappan economy. Like many other aspects of the Harappan civilisation, Harappan currency remains one of the greatest enigmas that defy logic and solution.

However, the presence of some form of currency is most plausible thanks to the presence of exact weights. The Harappan weights were found in Bahrain in modern excavations in recent times suggesting that the weights were uniform in the two regions and used to quantify the buying and selling of trade goods between the two people.

Another pointer to a Harappan currency is the Harappan familiarity with the use of gold for ornamentation. Thus, Harappan currency may have been bullion most probably gold as gold objects are common in Harappan sites as opposed to silver.

Thus, Harappan era represents a monetary puzzle in the history of Indian money due to lack of definite evidence of a Harappan currency. However, other evidences like organized weight system, familiarity with gold as a precious commodity and a sophisticated system of trading point to the existence of a definite form of exchange system in the period.

(To be continued)

The Story of Indian Money

The Story of Indian Money – Part I

The recent excitement about the new symbol for the Indian Rupee created a huge tsunami of excitement in the Indian media as it symbolized India’s rise in the hierarchy of the select group of nations with similar privileges.

However, the event also brought the focus on the antiquity of Indian money and most newspapers scrambled for more information on this neglected topic in Indian History.

Hurried research by columnists made us faintly aware of the creation of the Indian denomination ‘Rupaiya’ or the modern Rupee during Sher Shah Suri’s reign clearly overlooking that the word ‘Rupaiya’ came from a more ancient Sanskrit term ‘Rupa’ meaning an image impressed on a metal.In India, like everywhere else, the idea of ‘money’ did not evolve overnight and had to undergo a parallel evolution with humans’ growth from pre-historic barbarians to the comfort-seeking creatures of today.

India has the longest and unbroken tradition of monetary evolution stretching three millennia or more and its money underwent dynamic changes with the rise and fall of numerous kingdoms and dynasties in the Indian sub-continent. Hence, the study of Indian money is essentially a kaleidoscopic study of the Indian civilisation itself in its varied hues.

The Pre-historic era (2.6 million years ago - 5000 B.C.)

The Indian sub-continent has seen continuous human occupation right from the beginning of of Stone Age’s hunter-gatherer stage (2.6 million years ago) into a settled human existence supported by farming and animal domestication during the Neolithic period (~ 8000 B.C.) Running parallel to this evolution has been the growth of human capability of trading beginning in the Palaeolithic Era (2.6 million years- 12000 B.C.) with simple barter of edible goods against stone tools and weapons. Indian archaeologists have found evidences of such exchanges in the form of ‘factory sites’ of tools which suggest mass production of stone tools for bartering.

The succeeding periods of prehistoric era viz. Mesolithic Era (12000 B.C. – 8000 B.C.) and Neolithic Era (8000 B.C. – 5000 B.C.) saw more sophistication in barter system with the evolution of primitive money in the form of ‘money objects’.

This is suggested by hoards of ‘money objects’ like arrow heads, iron filings, bead money, copper implements and cowry shells (in lands far away from the sea) found all over India’s numerous pre-historic sites. Archaeologists have inferred that these objects were used to ‘buy’ other valuable objects since they were perceived as ‘valuable’ by the primitive people. Thus, the pre-historic period helped train humans in the essential art of mutual exchange. However, the period was interspersed with sporadic violence over the ‘perceived inequities’ fostered by this primitive trading.

The major drawback of barter, though it survived for a long long time, was the excessive reliance on a mutual need for exchange between the concerned individuals; a condition that made trading a probable cause for strife in pre-historic society.

Barter objects are found often in archaeological excavations spanning all periods especially the prehistoric era. One famous example is the Copper Hoards found in Central India where Copper tools of various types are found huddled in form of a typical factory site. The British Museum's Coin Gallery exhibits a typical Copper hoard found from Ghungeria, Madhya Pradesh as an example of this prehistoric culture.

Thus, the idea of money in this primitive period thus centred upon exchange of metallic objects either in form of domestic or mechanical tools or weapons for self defence in exchange for other goods.

(To be continued)