V. A Smith — Onrco- Roman influence 



[No. 3, 



such rude coins was invented in India independently of Greek teaching. 

 But this conclusion does not prove that any such coins should be assign- 

 ed to a very remote period. It is quite impossible to say when the nse 

 of blank or punch-marked rectangular pieces of silver or copper of definite 

 weight began, and it is difficult to say when it ended. I suspect that in 

 out-of-the-way corners of India the old-fashioned punch-marked pieces 

 continued to be struck centuries after coins of more regular fabric had 

 become familiar in the more advanced parts of the country, and that 

 specimens of the ancient, indigenous coinage long continued in circula- 

 tion side by side with pieces struck in imitation of foreign models. At 

 the present day the people of the districts between Fyzabad and Patna 

 obstinately cling to the custom of using the clumsy, mis-shapen lumps 

 of copper, known as 1 dumpy ' or ' Gorakhpuri pice,' and refuse to cir- 

 culate the well-executed, and, to European notions, convenient copper 

 coinage issued from the British mints. During the past year the 

 Government of India has found itself compelled to make an effort to 

 suppress by law the currency of the unauthorized ' dumpy pice.' The 

 mere form, then, of any given punch-marked or ether rude uninscribed 

 coin is a very imperfect test of its age. 



So far as I can learn, no definite evidence is producible to show 

 that any Indian coin now extant is of earlier date than B. C. 300. The 

 complete absence of all traces of foreign influence on the Indian coins 

 of the most primitive form renders probable the hypothesis that some 

 of them were struck before India entered into at all intimate relations 

 with the peoples of the West, but that is the most that can at present 

 be said in favour of the alleged extreme antiquity of some Indian coins. 

 The arguments of Mr. Thomas, so far as they are based on the references to 

 coins in the Code of Manu and other early Sanskrit books, cannot be 

 regarded as valid, when viewed in the light of modern research into the 

 chronology of Sanskrit literature. 



The rare, but now well-known coins of Sophytes, a prince in the 

 Panjab, who was contemporary with Alexander the Great, are rather 

 earlier than any indigenous Indian coins can be proved to be, and are 

 altogether Greek in device and legend, though perhaps not in weight- 

 standard. They are modelled on the pattern of coins of the Seleucid 

 kings of Syria.* 



The extensive mintages of the Grasco-Bactrian kings (from 13. C. 

 246 to circa B. 0. 25) were mostly issued in countries beyond the limits 

 of Tndia, but long circulated freely in the Panjab, the valley of the 

 Ganges, and the ports of the western coast. 



» Gardner, Catalogue nf Corns 0/ Grerk and Saythic kings of Bactria and India, 

 p. xx. 



