Indian coins are totally different from coins around the world, because India was not one but more than 1000 coin-minting nations in the last 3000 years. So in effect you are dealing with coins from more than a thousand different nations.
Left: A coin from the Satavahana Period (230BCE - 220CE) with an elephant with raised trunk to the right and inscription in Brahmi letter
The Earliest Coins: the earliest known Indian coins were produced around 800 BC, but this need not be the earliest coins that were actually produced. That is because the earliest coins were simply pieces of precious metals like silver and gold and they did not contain any kind of inscription. The value was reckoned by weight.
Left: A coin from the Satavahana Period (230BCE - 220CE) with an elephant with raised trunk to the right and inscription in Brahmi letter
The Earliest Coins: the earliest known Indian coins were produced around 800 BC, but this need not be the earliest coins that were actually produced. That is because the earliest coins were simply pieces of precious metals like silver and gold and they did not contain any kind of inscription. The value was reckoned by weight.
However, since there was no difference between bullion and coins, the earliest Indian coins tended to get melted for purification and also for recasting into uninscribed coins of various weights. Thus by their very nature the earliest coins of India could not survive unchanged for long. This is the primary reason why Indian coins from periods earlier than 800 BC have not been identified.
Punch Marked Coins: From around 800 onwards one finds silver (mostly) and copper (fewer) coins with symbols imprinted on them with metallic punches. This is why they are called punch-marked coins (PMC). Hundreds of thousands of ancient silver PMCs have been found from all over India.
Picture: A Copper Punch Marked Coin (about 4x size). A post-Mauryan punchmarked coin from Vidarbha depicting sun, 6-armed symbol, Indhra-dvaja, svastika and taurine in a square railing and a tree symbol. It was originally coated with silver and traces remain on it.
The geographical region of India had very large segments ruled by the people and these were known as Janpadas (Region ruled by people) and Maha Janpadas (Mega Janpadas). Each one of them issued their own Punch Marked Coins in silver and copper. Each janpada had its own major distinguishing marks using which we identify these coins today. There are hundreds of minor symbols also, and research is still going on to decipher them. However, this has not hapered the identification of coins in any way.
The Next Generation of Coins: Other methods of coinmaking came into vogue by around 400 and the making of the Punch Marked Coins came to an end. What is more, the coins were now impressed with actual images plus some sybmols instead of symbols alone. Often the style of these images closely resemble artistic styles of the era in which they were produced. Thus it became possible for archeology to furnish a good amount of additional data and ease of identification through comparative studies.
Placing inscriptions soon came into practice in mid and north Indian coins. The script used, the language (which could be different) of the inscription, and the content of the inscription made identification of coins much more accurate for the current coin collector or numismatic researcher.
Mugal period brought the practice of voluminous inscriptions, placing dates, names of rulers, and even mints on the coins. The British period brough modern methods of fabricating coins, resulting in geometrically proporionat coins, clear fonts, and many other things which we modern society is familiar.
The 3000 years of minting coins, the more than 1000 kingdoms, and the political forces resulted in the production of hundreds of thousands of varieties of coins in the last three millennia in India. Collecting, identifying, classifying and studying them is a task more difficult than studying the entire set of coins produced in the whole world. On the other hand, this difficulty also adds to the charm and challange faced by those who collect Indian Coins.
Punch Marked Coins: From around 800 onwards one finds silver (mostly) and copper (fewer) coins with symbols imprinted on them with metallic punches. This is why they are called punch-marked coins (PMC). Hundreds of thousands of ancient silver PMCs have been found from all over India.
The geographical region of India had very large segments ruled by the people and these were known as Janpadas (Region ruled by people) and Maha Janpadas (Mega Janpadas). Each one of them issued their own Punch Marked Coins in silver and copper. Each janpada had its own major distinguishing marks using which we identify these coins today. There are hundreds of minor symbols also, and research is still going on to decipher them. However, this has not hapered the identification of coins in any way.
The Next Generation of Coins: Other methods of coinmaking came into vogue by around 400 and the making of the Punch Marked Coins came to an end. What is more, the coins were now impressed with actual images plus some sybmols instead of symbols alone. Often the style of these images closely resemble artistic styles of the era in which they were produced. Thus it became possible for archeology to furnish a good amount of additional data and ease of identification through comparative studies.
Placing inscriptions soon came into practice in mid and north Indian coins. The script used, the language (which could be different) of the inscription, and the content of the inscription made identification of coins much more accurate for the current coin collector or numismatic researcher.
Mugal period brought the practice of voluminous inscriptions, placing dates, names of rulers, and even mints on the coins. The British period brough modern methods of fabricating coins, resulting in geometrically proporionat coins, clear fonts, and many other things which we modern society is familiar.
The 3000 years of minting coins, the more than 1000 kingdoms, and the political forces resulted in the production of hundreds of thousands of varieties of coins in the last three millennia in India. Collecting, identifying, classifying and studying them is a task more difficult than studying the entire set of coins produced in the whole world. On the other hand, this difficulty also adds to the charm and challange faced by those who collect Indian Coins.
More Indian Coin Articles
Indian Coin Websites:
- http://www.CoinsEncyclopedia.org
- http://www.CoinsEncyclopedia.com
- http://www.CoinsEncyclopedia.net
- http://www.bharatcoins.com/1.html
- http://coinsindia.info/
http://www.geocities.com/india_coin/ - http://indian-coins.com/
- http://indiancoins.somee.com/
- http://www.indusnumis.com/
- http://www.karsha.org/homepage.aspx
- http://paliakara.wordpress.com/
- http://republicindiacoins.blogspot.com/
- http://www.nupam.com/
[Pictures Copyright 2008 : Dr. Johnson C. Philip, Creative Commons, Attribution-noncommercial 3 License]
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