Coins and Currency in Indian History: Exam Notes

Coins are the hardest evidence the historian of early India has. A dynasty may leave no inscription and no building, yet its coins survive in hoards, carrying a king's name, his title, his god and the metal his treasury could afford. That is why examiners like the topic: every fact in it is a pairing, and pairings make good questions. A ruler is named and the candidate must supply the coin, or a coin is named and the candidate must supply the ruler. This chapter runs the pairings in order, from the punch-marked pieces of the sixth century before Christ to the decimal rupee. The study of coins is called numismatics, and the related study of inscriptions is epigraphy; the two words are themselves asked.

Before coins: units of value

The Vedic texts speak of nishka, satamana and krishnala, which were weights of gold or units of value rather than struck coins, and most early exchange was barter in cattle and grain. Coinage proper begins with the rise of the sixteen mahajanapadas and of trade along the Ganga valley, when metal pieces of a guaranteed weight became necessary.

Punch-marked coins

The earliest Indian coins are the punch-marked coins, called aahat sikke in Hindi and known in literature as karshapana or pana. They are mostly silver, sometimes copper, cut into irregular squares and rectangles and stamped with symbols punched separately: the sun, a six-armed wheel, hills, trees, animals and geometric marks. They carry no legend, so they name no king. They were issued from about the sixth century BCE by the mahajanapadas, by the Nanda and Mauryan state and also by merchant guilds, which is why a single hoard can contain many combinations of symbols. Large hoards have come from Taxila and from Golakhpur near Patna. The Arthashastra of Kautilya names the officers who ran this coinage: the Lakshanadhyaksha was the superintendent of the mint and the Rupadarshaka was the examiner who tested coins before they were accepted.

Indo-Greek, Kushana, Satavahana and Gupta coins

The Indo-Greek rulers of the north-west were the first to put a portrait and a legible name on coins in India, and the first to strike gold coins here. Their issues are bilingual, Greek on one face and Kharosthi or Brahmi on the other, which is how scholars read the Kharosthi script. The Kushanas minted gold in quantity; Vima Kadphises was the first Kushana to issue gold, and the coins of Kanishka carry the Buddha, along with Greek, Iranian and Indian deities, a mixture that shows how wide the empire was. The Satavahanas of the Deccan are known for lead and potin coins, some of them bearing a two-masted ship, read as evidence of their sea trade. The Western Kshatrapas issued silver, and Roman gold coins found at sites such as Arikamedu show the Roman trade of the early centuries CE. The largest number of gold coins in ancient India was issued by the Guptas, who called them dinara. Their types are a small gallery: the King and Queen type of Chandragupta I with Kumaradevi, the Ashvamedha and the Lyrist types of Samudragupta, who is shown playing the veena, and the Archer and Chakravikrama types of Chandragupta II. Gupta gold grew less pure in the later reigns, and the Guptas also struck silver in western India after they took the Kshatrapa territory.

The Delhi Sultanate

Iltutmish gave the Sultanate its standard coinage: the silver tanka and the copper jital, with purely Arabic legends and the mint name. Alauddin Khalji dropped the caliph's name and took grand titles on his coins. Muhammad bin Tughlaq, called the prince of moneyers for the range and beauty of his issues, introduced a gold dinar and, in 1329 or 1330, a token currency of brass and copper pieces made legal tender at the value of silver; forgery in every household wrecked it and the Sultan had to redeem the tokens in silver. Firoz Shah Tughlaq issued small copper coins so that the poor could make small purchases.

Sher Shah's rupiya and the Mughal coins

Sher Shah Suri reformed the currency and issued a silver coin of about 178 grains called the rupiya, along with a copper dam and a gold mohur. The rupiya is the direct ancestor of the modern rupee, and the name is the single most asked fact of this chapter. The Mughals kept the system: a trimetallic coinage of the gold mohur or ashrafi, the silver rupaya and the copper dam, with a mint in every large city. Akbar issued coins with the Ilahi era date and had square pieces struck. Jahangir is remembered for two unusual series: coins bearing the twelve signs of the zodiac, and coins carrying his own portrait, besides issues in the name of Nur Jahan. Aurangzeb removed the kalima from his coins.

From the Company rupee to the decimal rupee

The East India Company's mints produced many local rupees until the Coinage Act of 1835 gave British India a uniform silver rupee. The Paper Currency Act of 1861 gave the Government of India the sole right to issue paper money. The Reserve Bank of India was established on 1 April 1935 and took over the issue of notes. The rupee was decimalised on 1 April 1957, when it was divided into one hundred units, first called naye paise and from 1964 simply paise. Today the Reserve Bank issues all banknotes except the one rupee note, which is issued by the Government of India, and all coins are minted by the Government of India, the Reserve Bank only putting them into circulation.

Terms worth memorising