58 W. Theobald —Karshapana Coinage. [No. 2, 
POSTCRIPT. 
Afc page 266 of my former paper I mentioned the ‘ Swastika’ as a 
symbol found on the silver ‘ Karshapanas.’ This is an error into which 
I fell by accepting the authority of Thomas, who figures it in his 
plate of symbols N.O. on the last line, and without considering that 
Thomas made no distinction between the symbols of the silver Karsha¬ 
panas, and those impressed on the copper coins of a distinctly different 
monetary value. It is tolerably certain that the ‘ Puranas ’ were a silver 
currency only; the few specimens known in copper having been made 
with the intention of plating them with silver. This is proved by the 
majority of such pieces still retaining traces of the silver which once 
covered them. How this was effected I cannot say, but the process 
was most dexterously carried out and the result a most perfect imitation 
of a silver coin. A specimen in my collection exemplifies this, as 
the thin covering of silver maintains the most perfect adhesion to 
the base metal, which shows through it by wear at different places. 
Neither was the process confined to these coins, as I have an excellent 
example of the same fraud in a hemi drachma of Menander; a Bull 
and Horseman coin of Samanta Deva of Kabul, and two Indo-Sassanian 
coins of different types. The weight of these spurious copper 
* Puranas ’ is about 45 grains, and as the silver could hardly have 
weighed less than ten grains, the coin when new, would by its 
appearance and weight have disarmed suspicion. On three of these 
copper coins before me (which with a number of other coins were lent 
me for examination by Dr. Codrington) there occur the following 
symbols of the present list, and no symbol whatever not found habitually 
on the silver coins; Nos. 12, 15, 72, 85, 99, 126, 140, 163, 164 ; but it 
is their light weight when worn which betrays their real character. 
Symbols on other silver coins than the ‘ Karshapanas ’ or ‘ Puranas ’ 
PROPER, WHETHER STRUCK WITH ‘PUNCHES’ OR ORDINARY DIES. 
It may be as well to notice here some symbols and devices which 
though occurring on coins, in some cases of an entirely different class 
from the ‘Puranas’ are yet related to the symbolism of the better 
known and earlier issues. The coins in question fall naturally into 
local groups from their ‘ findspots, Saharanpur, Mathura, Wai, and 
the Konkan.’ The Saharanpur coins of the ‘ Kunindas,’ are described 
in “The Coins of Ancient India,” page 70, and the silver coin of the 
tribe supplies us with numerous symbols, some new, and some merely 
variants of forms met with on the early ‘ Puranas.’ 
