oct. — dec. 1856.] Notes on Indian Currencies. 33 



ing to the dynasty that issued them, from that time to close upon 

 the Mahommedan sera. 



In the same Journal*' for October 1836, Mr. Prinsep has given 

 several new varieties of the Indo-Scythic coins and more fully de- 

 veloped the link between that coinage and the Hindu series, 

 through the Gupta coins of Canouj. And in the April number of 

 the Journal for 1837, the same gentleman has engraved specimens 

 of the Indo-Sassanian coins which he says have frequently been 

 discovered in the Punjab topes. He fixes their probable date be- 

 tween the 3rd and 6th Centuries A. D., and concludes that the 

 Sassanian dynasty prevailed in Upper India, and that Hinduism be- 

 came mixed with the religion of Bactria. 



After this, there can be little doubt of the remote antiquity of 

 Hindoo coinage, so I shall speculate no further on the question, but 

 come at once to more modern times wherein we know, that what- 

 ever new district we have annexed or acquired, and into whatever 

 new country our people have pushed their way, scores of different 

 kinds of currencies have been found in circulation, evidence of the 

 fact that every petty native state ostentatiously maintained its own 

 mint and peculiar coinage. Hence it is that such a vast variety of 

 gold and silver coins have been current at one time or another in 

 our territories in India, and indeed are still to some extent current. 



From the time of Alexander's invasion to the Mahommedan 

 supremacy, excepting that India represented a chess-board of in- 

 dependent Hindoo states, little is known of its political history. 

 Many of the princes laid claim, we are told, to be Lord Paramount 

 of the whole country, but without any solid title to the honor, and it 

 is now nearly certain that as in Alexander's time, so for many cen- 

 turies subsequent to him, these states, dotted over the length and 

 breadth of India, led a feudatory and independent kind of exist- 

 ence. 



After the breaking up of the empire of the Caliphs in the 9 th 

 century, and when several Arab conquests had taken place in the 

 northern part of India, various dynasties we are assured sprang up, 



* Vol. 5. p, 639. 



E 



