74 W. Theobald —Early Local Silver Coinages in N.- W. India. [No. 2, 
different design, neither design being very clear as regards its import, 
or easy to describe, so as to convey any precise idea by words to the 
reader. The coins are square or polygonal, or even partly rounded. 
The square ones are eight millimeters broad, and three in thickness. The 
heaviest coin weighed 27 grains, whilst the average of eleven coins is a 
trifle under 26. These pieces, therefore, are half kdrsdpanas , the 
calculated weight of which equals sixteen ratis, or 28'8 grains, though 
coins rarely attain the full standard of weight and not unfrequently, 
through wear, fall much below it. (See General Sir A. Cunningham’s 
Coins of Ancient India , p. 44). 
One of the leading peculiarities of the purdnas , or old silver 
kdrsdpanas , is that no two are ever seen exactly alike, the result of 
course of the symbols, or devices, on them being struck independently 
from different ‘punches’ at different times. With ‘ die’-struck coins, 
however, this is not so, though different dies may vary somewhat in the 
details of the devices on them. 
The device on the obverse of eleven of the coins is made up of two 
principal symbols, and four or five smaller or accessory ones. The first 
and uppermost of the two principal symbols resembles a nine-pin, 
placed horizontally, with its head to the right and the body slightly 
tapering towards the left. The head is conical, and demarked from the 
body by a constriction, or neck, on the left of which, in some coins, is a 
circular impression or groove, which, were it not behind the head, might 
be thought to represent an eye. 
The lower side of the object is very slightly convex and quite 
plain, but above and inclined at an angle of 45° to the axis of the body 
are three or four parallel straight or slightly curved lines, having a 
rayed or fin-like character, whilst two shorter lines terminate the body 
and impart a fanciful fish-like appearance to the whole symbol. What 
this symbol is intended to represent I have not the faintest idea, nor 
does it resemble any of the numerous symbols met with -on the silver 
kdrsdpanas , or ‘ punch-marked ’ coins. On these ‘ punch-marked ’ 
coins fish are very conventionally portrayed, but there is no doubt 
respecting the object the artist had in view. On each side of the body 
two fins are symmetrically arranged, the anterior pair representing the 
pectoral, whilst the others stand for the dorsal and ventral fins. 
Behind the fins comes the more or less bifid tail, which leaves no 
doubt of the nature of the object in question. See Numismata Orientalia , 
Parti, plate I, fig. 10, on which a pair of fishes is seen in an ‘incused’ area; 
and in the same plate, fig. 8, where a turtle is represented between two 
fishes, and the third figure on the right on the seventh line, where two 
pairs of fishes are represented in a tank facing one another. In the 
