1889.] 



on the Civilization of Ancient Indict. 



m 



No known coin can be determined to have been issued by the great 

 Asoka or any member of his dynasty. The few legends found on coins 

 of the period give no clue to the name of the reigning sovereign. Asoka 

 must have struck coin to a large extent during his long reign, and, as 

 not a single piece bearing his name has been found, the only possible 

 conclusion is, that the bulk of his coinage consisted of the rude, unin- 

 scribed pieces above referred to. These coins were struck, as we have 

 asm, to the Indian standard, and they circulated side by side with the 

 Grasco-Bactrian issues, specimens of which are found in large numbers 

 all over Northern India. 



The general adaptation in India of Greek or Grroco-Roman types 

 of coinage was the result of tho Indo-Scythiau invasions about the be- 

 ginning of the Christian era. The indigenous Indian coinage consisted 

 of silver and copper, I cannot undertake to say that gold coins were 

 absolutely unknown in India before tho Indo-Seythian invasions, but, if 

 they existed, they were insignificant in quantity, for not a single speci- 

 men of them has ever been discovered. The earliest gold coins struck 

 in India, which follow the indigenous scale of weights, are tho heavy 

 coins of Chandra Gupta II of the Gupta dynasty, and these are not 

 earlier than A. D. 400. All coins of tho Gupta dynasty are die-struck, 

 and their outward form, whether they follow the Indian or the Greek 

 weight-standard, is ultimately derived from Greek originals.* 



The Indo-Seythian kings introduced a regular gold currency into 

 India and struck vast quantities of gold coins, as well as of copper. 

 Their gold coins combine various foreign elements, but are essentially 

 Roman aurei, equivalent to Greek staters. The Gupta coinage is related 

 to the Indo-Seythian, and its devices exhibit faint traces of Greek 

 artistic power as late as A. I). 400. After the break-up of the Gupta 

 empire about A. D. 480, the coinage of India became utterly barbarous, 

 and lost all marks of Hellenic influence on design, legend, or standard. 



As regards tho origin of coinage in India my opinion, in short, is 

 that the art of coinage in rude forms arose in India quite independently 

 of Greek teaching. Neither the invasion of Alexander tho Great, nor 

 the example of his Bactrian successors sufficed to induce tho princes of 

 India to abandon their indigenous stylo of coinage. One potty chief 

 in tho Panjab, Sophytos by name, struck coins after the Greek fashion, 

 but found no imitators in the interior of India. Asoka and tho other 

 sovereigns of tho Maurya dynasty continued to issue coins of the old 

 native pattern, on which they did not even inscribe their names. 



* For information in detail about tho Gnpta coinago I must refer to my paper 

 on tho Early or Imperial Gnpta Dynasty of Northern India in the Journal of the 

 Boyal Asiatic Society for 1889, pp. 1-158, with live plates. 



