Ancient Indian Coins

The study of Ancient Indian coins is both interesting and fascinating. India was a boiling pot of various cultures since ancient times, witnessing numerous invasions and attacks by rulers of other regions of the world..

India was always perceived as a land of bounty and enormous wealth. Thus it attracted attention of some of the world's most famous rulers like Alexander, the Huns and the Islamic rulers.

Early days before the advent of coinage

Self-Subsistent economy was prevalent in ancient India during Pre-Vedic era. A Family would cultivate and produce what was required for itself. Gradually, these small families came together to form small communities or tribal clans. That's when the needs of people elevated from the self subsistence economy to barter economy where goods were exchanged between people or between various communities.

People began to realize the limitations of the barter system economy mainly because two commodities were never of the same value. Certain things got preference over the others and a higher value was attached to them. This resulted in conflicts between parties or most often, there was no equal benefit accrued to one of the parties because of the transaction.
That's when the need for a common commodity as a medium of exchange arose and they were the precursors of coins. The huge granaries found at the Mohenjo Daro and Harappa excavation sites corroborate to the fact that agricultural products were used a medium of exchange.
The Vedic people used cows as a medium of exchange and this is evident from various ancient literary sources like the Aitreya Brahmana, the Rig Veda and the Ashtadhyayi.
One passage in the Rig Veda mentions the price of the image of Indra offered on sale to be ten cows.

Similarly in the Aitreya Brahmana, there is a reference to the number of cows as an estimation of wealth. It is mentioned that a price of a hundred cows was paid to the father of Sunahsepa, when he was being sold for a sacrifice conducted by Harishchandra. Cows remained as a medium of exchange till the later part of the post-Vedic period. This is evident from the certain passages of Ashtadhyayi of Panini.

Cows met the needs of the age, as they were not easily perishable, can be moved from one place to another and had the capacity to multiply, work and supply milk. However, cows were a troublesome medium of exchange as they required to be cared and some degree of skill in rearing. Hence, this medium was not suitable for large transactions and long-term savings etc.
This gave arose to the need for a more stable medium of exchange - metals. The problem of how to use them was solved by inventing balances and weights, and the metals were cut according to a pre-defined standard weight. Metal was weighed against seeds and different kinds of seeds (krishnala seeds or Abrus Precatorius) were introduced in different regions as standard weights according to their availability.

Transactions involving metal were equally tedious. Scales were required to weigh the metals and touchstones to determine the purity of the metal was used. In addition, there were problems of rampant debasement of metal, forgery etc that again resulted in a loss of value in transactions. Hence, official authorities or merchant guilds stamped metal pieces, and conducted a check to ensure genuineness and the purity of the metal content.

Thus, first coins of Ancient India came into existence and were known as “Punch Marked Coins”. The Ashtadhyayi mentions that the metallic pieces were stamped (ahata) with symbols (rupa). These were in circulation along with the unstamped variety of metallic coins which were referred to as the ‘nishka’, ‘satamana’ and ‘pada’. There is also a mention of ‘shana’ and ‘karshapana’, terms used for different monetary denominations.

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