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{{more citations needed|date=July 2017}}
{{Short description|Early coinage of India}}
{{About|the Indian coins||Countermark}}
[[File:Hoard of mostly Mauryan coins.jpg|thumb|200px|A hoard of mostly [[Maurya Empire|Mauryan]] punch-marked coins]]
'''Punch-marked coins''', also known as ''Aahat coins'', are a type of early [[coinage of India]], dating to between about the 6th and 2nd centuries BC. It was of irregular shape. These coins are found over most parts of subcontinent and remained in circulation till the early centuries CE.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://ncert.nic.in/textbook.php?fess1=8-10 |title=History - Our Past I |publisher=NCERT |year=2022 |isbn=81-7450-493-1 |edition=November 22 |location=New Delhi |page=4 |language=en}}</ref>

== History==
The study of the relative chronology of these coins has successfully established that the first punch-marked coins initially only had one or two punches, with the number of punches increasing over time.<ref name=JC1983-95>{{cite book |last1=Cribb |first1=Joe |title=Investigating the introduction of coinage in India- a review of recent research, Journal of the Numismatic Society of India xlv (Varanasi 1983), pp.95-101 |pages=85–86 |url=https://www.academia.edu/33456187 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Errington |first=Elizabeth |title=A Survey of Late Hoards of Indian Punch-marked Coins, Numismatic Chronicle 2003, pp. 60-121, plates 18-23. |url=https://www.academia.edu/35840829}}</ref>

[[File:Metals and coins- Chandraketugarh- State Archaeological Museum- Address - 1, Satyen Roy Rd, Auddy Bagan Basti, Behala, Kolkata, West Bengal 700034- First floor- Early history Gallery 03.jpg|thumb|Punch-marked coins discovered from [[Chandraketugarh]].]]
The first coins in India may have been [[Mint (coin)|minted]] around the 6th century BC{{citation needed|date=April 2019}} by the [[Mahajanapadas]] of the [[Indo-Gangetic Plain]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}} 19th-century proposals which suggested an origin from as early as 1000 BC, independent of the introduction of [[Coin#Lydian and Ionian electrum coins (circa 600 BC)|coins in Asia Minor]], are "no longer given any credence".<ref name=JC1983-95/>

Silver coins were certainly being produced in the [[Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley|Achaemenid]] Satrapy of [[Gandāra]], by the mid-4th century BC, before the [[Indian campaign of Alexander the Great]], in 327 BC, as Plutarch noted [[Taxiles]] (Ambhi) of Taxila exchanged coined tribute with Alexander.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Plutarch |title=Life of Alexander |url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Alexander*/8.html |access-date=2022-03-02 |website=penelope.uchicago.edu}}</ref> According to [[Joe Cribb]], Indian punch-marked coins go back to the mid-4th century BC or slightly earlier, and actually started with the punch-marked coinage of the Achaemenids in the [[Kabul]]/ [[Gandhara]] area.<ref name=JC1983-95/>

The coins of this period were punch-marked coins called ''Puranas'', ''Karshapanas'' or ''Pana''. Several of these coins had a single symbol, for example, [[Saurashtra (region)|Saurashtra]] had a humped bull, and Dakshin [[Panchala]] had a [[Swastika]] (which was a symbol of good luck prior to the 20th Century), others, like [[Magadha]], had several symbols. These coins were made of [[silver]] of a standard weight but with an irregular shape. This was gained by cutting up silver bars and then making the correct weight by cutting the edges of the coin.<ref name="Goyala1994">{{cite book|author=Śrīrāma Goyala|title=The Coinage of Ancient India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T5caAAAAYAAJ|year=1994|publisher=Kusumanjali Prakashan}}</ref>

They are mentioned in the [[Manu Smriti|Manu]] (c. 200 BC - 200 AD), [[Pāṇini|Panini]] (bef. 300 BC), and [[Buddhist]] [[Jataka]] (c. 300 BC - 400 AD), circulating in the North until approximately the beginning of the first century AD, but lasted three centuries longer in the South, i.e. until about 300 AD.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chennaimuseum.org/draft/gallery/04/01/coin1.htm|title=Puranas or Punch-Marked Coins (circa 600 BC – circa 300 AD)|publisher=Government Museum Chhennai|access-date=2007-09-06}}</ref>
<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chennaimuseum.org/draft/gallery/04/01/coin1.htm |title=Puranas or Punch-Marked Coins (circa 600 BC – circa 300 AD) |publisher=Government Museum Chennai |access-date=2007-09-06}}</ref>
* [[Shurasena]]
* [[Surashtra]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://coinindia.com/galleries-surashtra.html |title=The COININDIA Coin Galleries: Surashtra Janapada |website=coinindia.com |access-date=3 October 2010}}</ref>
** Early coins of India (400 BC – 100 AD) were made of [[silver]] and [[copper]], and bore animal and plant symbols on them.<ref name="EBAllan&Stern">Allan & Stern (2008)</ref>

==Greek and Achaemenid coinage in northwestern India (6th century onward)==
[[File:Athens coin discovered in Pushkalavati.jpg|thumb|[[Athens]] coin (c. 500/490-485 BC) discovered in [[Pushkalavati]]. This coin is the earliest known example of its type to be found so far east.<ref name="CNG Coins">[https://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=199773 CNG Coins]</ref>]]
[[File:Gandhara bent bar.jpg|thumb|"Bent bar" minted under Achaemenid administration, [[Gandhara]], c.350 BC.<ref name=JC/><ref>[https://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=309206 CNG Coins]</ref>]]
{{see also|Kabul hoard|Shaikhan Dehri hoard|Achaemenid invasion of the Indus Valley}}
Coin finds in the [[Kabul hoard]] (c. 380 BC), [[Mir Zakah]] hoards (c. 100 AD), Taxila [[Bhir Mound]] (c. 300 BC), or the [[Shaikhan Dehri hoard]] near [[Pushkalavati]] have revealed numerous [[Achaemenid coinage|Achaemenid coins]] as well as many [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] coins from the 5th and 4th centuries BC were circulating in the area, at least as far as the [[Indus]] during the reign of the [[Achaemenids]] (549 - 330 BCE), who were in control of the areas as far as [[Gandhara]].<ref name=OB300>{{cite book |last1=Bopearachchi |first1=Osmund |title="Coin Production and Circulation in Central Asia and North-West India (Before and after Alexander's Conquest)" |pages=300–301 |url=https://www.academia.edu/15798938 |language=en}}</ref><ref>[https://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/afgh05-106.html US Department of Defense]</ref><ref name=JC>{{cite book |last1=Errington |first1=Elizabeth |last2=Trust |first2=Ancient India and Iran |last3=Museum |first3=Fitzwilliam |title=The Crossroads of Asia: transformation in image and symbol in the art of ancient Afghanistan and Pakistan |date=1992 |publisher=Ancient India and Iran Trust |isbn=9780951839911 |pages=57–59 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pfLpAAAAMAAJ |language=en}}</ref><ref name=OB308>{{cite book |last1=Bopearachchi |first1=Osmund |title="Coin Production and Circulation in Central Asia and North-West India (Before and after Alexander's Conquest)" |pages=308– |url=https://www.academia.edu/15798938 |language=en}}</ref> In 2007 a small coin hoard was discovered at the site of ancient [[Pushkalavati]] (Shaikhan Dehri) in [[Pakistan]]. The hoard contained a [[tetradrachm]] minted in [[Athens]] c. 500-480 BC, together with a number of local types as well as silver cast ingots. The Athens coin is the earliest known example of its type to be found so far to the east.<ref name="CNG Coins"/> While the Mir Zakah hoards offered hundreds of thousands of examples, punched and stamped bars and coins, manufactured between the late 5th century BC, and late 1st century AD.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=TYE |first=ROBERT |date=2006 |title=Late Indian Punchmarked Coins in the Mir Zakah II Hoard |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/42666406 |journal=The Numismatic Chronicle |volume=166 |pages=167–171 |jstor=42666406 |issn=0078-2696}}</ref>

According to [[Joe Cribb]], these early Greek coins were at the origin of Indian punch-marked coins, the earliest coins developed in India, which used minting technology derived from Greek coinage.<ref name=JC/> [[Daniel Schlumberger]] also considers that punch-marked bars, similar to the many punch-marked bars found in northwestern India, initially originated in the Achaemenid Empire, rather than in the Indian heartland:

{{blockquote|“The punch-marked bars were up to now considered to be Indian (...) However the weight standard is considered by some expert to be Persian, and now that we see them also being uncovered in the soil of Afghanistan, we must take into account the possibility that their country of origin should not be sought beyond the Indus, but rather in the oriental provinces of the Achaemenid Empire"|[[Daniel Schlumberger]], quoted from Trésors Monétaires, p.42.<ref name=OB308/>}}

==Mauryan Period (322–185 BC)==
[[Image:MauryanCoin.JPG|thumb|Punch-marked coin of the [[Nanda Empire|Nanda dynasty]] of Magadha. The five symbols on this coin are: Sun symbol, six-armed (Magadha) symbol, bull on hilltop, Indradhvaja flanked by four taurines, elephant. There's also an unofficial countermark on the reverse.]]
During the [[Mauryan]] period, punch-marked coins continued to be issued in large quantities. Similarly, the coinage of the Mauryan Empire was an example of the punch-marked coinage of Magadha. Each coin contained on average 50–54 grains of silver depending on wear and 32 [[ratti]]s in weight,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.med.unc.edu/~nupam/ancient1.html |title=Archived copy |access-date=2005-06-18 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050618025958/http://www.med.unc.edu/~nupam/ancient1.html |archive-date=2005-06-18 }} accessed 29 October 2009</ref> and earlier coins are flatter than later coins. Punches on these coins count to 450 different types with the most common the [[sun]] and six-armed symbols, and various forms of geometrical patterns, circles, wheels, human figures, various animals, bows and arrows, hills and trees etc.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gupta |first=Parmeshwari Lal |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.37933/page/n11/mode/1up |title=Silver Punch-marked Coins |year=1951 |pages=12}}</ref>

In the North, following the fall of the [[Maurya Empire]] and the increased influence of the [[Greco-Bactrians]] and [[Indo-Greeks]], punch-marked coins were replaced by cast die-struck coins, as visible in the [[Post-Mauryan coinage of Gandhara]].

==See also==
{{Commons category|Indian punch-marked coins}}
{{Portal|Money}}
* [[Overstrike (numismatics)]] — where a new design is struck over an existing coin
* [[Chop marks on coins]]
* [[Countermark]]
* [[Counterfeit]]
* [[Nandipada]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20101121123356/http://www215.pair.com/sacoins/public_html/shailenspaper.htm ''The archaic indian punch marked coins – approaches to classification'', by Shailendra Bhandare]
* [http://scrapsatrandom.blogspot.com/ India's earliest coinage – punch-marked coins]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120605090747/http://coinindia.com/galleries-shurasena.html Punch-marked coins from Shurasena]
* [http://coinindia.com/galleries-surashtra.html Punch-marked coins from Surashtra]

{{Historic Indian currency and coinage}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Punch Marked Coins}}
[[Category:Ancient currencies]]
[[Category:Coins of India]]
[[Category:Ancient India]]

Punch-marked coins - Revision history

DigiGuru Prasenjit at 10:47, 16 January 2026

Ajay Kumar: Created a new article