The Weight Standards of Ancient Indian Coins

Extract

The indifference of the ancient Indian to the maintenance of definite chronicles even when a voluminous literature of a philosophical and religious kind existed, has left the historian, apart from meagre foreign accounts, with little written evidence of the course of Indian events other than fanciful epics and legends. Under such circumstances, he has had to utilize to the utmost such deductions as can be drawn from material sources, and among these one of the most important has been the ancient coinage. The aftermath of Alexander's invasion left various Græco-Bactrian kingdoms and principalities extending through Afghanistan and the Punjab as far as Muttra, of which many coins have been found, and these have often proved useful for dating purposes. In this paper, however, investigation is confined to the much more obscure early indigenous coins of the years previous or not long subsequent to the Christian era, with a view to discovering what weight standards are present, and what they imply.