1889.] 



on the Civilization of Ancient India. 



punches. Coins of this kind, which were struck both in silver and 

 copper, are, therefore, known to Indian numismatists as 'punch- 

 marked ' coins. Like the blanks, which presumably preceded them, 

 they are struck to the Indian standard of 32 ratis. This standard 

 cannot, I helievo, be in any way connected with the Greek metric 

 system. The punch-marked coins are destitute of legends, but the 

 purely Indian character of their devices and their Indian standard of 

 weight render it incredible that they should be the result of Greek 

 influence. 



Other early Indian coins with a general resemblance to the punch- 

 marked pieces were either cast in a mould or struck with a die covering 

 the face of the coin, and some few of the oldest of such cast and die- 

 struck coins, which follow Indian standards of weight, are inscribed 

 with characters of the form current in the days of Asoka. The devices 

 of these coins are as indigenous as those of the punch-marked class.* 



It is, I venture to suggest, by no means unlikely that the use of 

 legends on coins was suggested by Greek example. The earliest in- 

 scribed Indian coins are proved by the characters used in their brief 

 legends to belong approximately to the period of Asoka, whose inscrip- 

 tions are the earliest examples of the use of the alphabet, afterwards 

 known as Devanagari. The history of that alphabet has not yet been 

 satisfactorily traced, and the sudden appearance of long and complicated 

 records inscribed iu its characters during the reign of Asoka is an un- 

 explained mystery. The simultaneous first appearance on Indian soil 

 of stone architecture and stone sculpture in the same reign is another 

 mystery. But, however mysterious be the exact origin of all these 

 sudden innovations, it is tolerably clear that they were in some way the 

 result of the foreign, especially the Greek, influences which certainly 

 affected the policy both of Asoka and his grandfather. It seems to be a 

 plausiblo conjecture that the introduction of coin legends about the same 

 time was another effect of the same potent foreign forces. 



However this may be, the various kinds of early coins, to which 

 I have alluded above, boar no other mark whatever of foreign origin. 

 It is, therefore, reasonable to conclude that the art of manufacturing 



* For discussion of these early Indian coins sec the above quoted essays by 

 Mr. Thomas. In Cunningham's Archceol. Bap., Vol. VI, pp. 213-220, Mr. Carlloyle 

 has attempted a classification of the punch-marked coins, the weights of which are 

 discassed by Sir A. Cunningham in ibid., Vol. XIV, p. 16. The classes of early 

 coins found at Bran are discussed and figured iu ibid., Vol. X, p. 77, PI. XXIV. 

 See also ibid., Vol. II, p. 10 ; V, p. 154, PI. XXXI, and VI, p. 167. Bnt the numis- 

 matic history of India remains to be written. I assnme 1-825 grain as the best 

 established value for the rati, for the reasons stated in Journal A*. Soc. of Bengal 

 Vol. LI II, part I, p. 146. 



