This important contribution about ancient coins in India has been written jointly by Osmund Bopearachchi and Wilfried Pieper. It is an impressive volume of 289 pages with 59 plates which presents a private collection of ancient coins patiently gathered trough the years. In Part one, W.Pieper develops a historical commentary about the earliest coinages of India, the imperial period of late Magadha and Maurya rule ( ca late IVth-early IInd centuries B.C.), Ujjain and Eran, the Satavahanas (ca Ist century B.C.-early IInd century A.D.), and tribal republics and kingdoms in post-Mauryan northern India ( ca 200 B.C-ca 300 A.D.). This commentary is followed by a detailed catalogue with very precise drawings of more than 600 coins and punch-marked coins. Part two by o. Bopearachhi is organized on the same pattern: a historical commentary about foreign powers in ancient northern India, from the Bactrian Greeks untill the time of the early Kushans followed by a precise catalogue presenting Greek, Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian, Indo-Parthian, and early Kushan coins (in fact, more than 300 specimens). The commentary intends to give a general overview of the coins concerned and of their historical context with a more extensive discussion of the series best represented in the collection. For the indigenous Indian coins this is specially true for the coinages of Ujjain, Eran, Taxila and Kausambi, many of which are new and published here for the first time.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891 edition. Excerpt: ...63 to 66-4 grains, give an average of 64-9 grains. But these are, perhaps, half-suvarnas, of 72 grains, full weight. The oldest of them are broad, thin, punchmarked coins, of more than 66 grains. They bear the names of Chalukya, and are assigned by W. Elliot to the fifth and sixth centuries A.d. I acquiesce in this date, as the inscribed silver coins that were found in their company are of about the same period. The actual age of the heavier Huns, or gold Karshas, is not known; but I am able to fix the date of one of the most remarkable specimens as certainly not later than the eleventh century. In the history of Kashmir it is stated that Raja Harsha Deva "liked the customs of the south, and introduced coins like those current in Karnata."34 Now I possess a gold coin of this king, with the name 34 Raja TaraDgini, B. vii. Translation by Jogesh Chunder Butt, p. 238). of "Sri Harsha Deva" on one side, and on the other a caparisoned elephant walking to the right, which is an evident copy of one of the Karnati gold coins of the same type. See W. Elliot's Coins of South India, Plate III., 109; and Marsden Numismata Orientalia, Plate XLVIIL, 1059. But the Kashmir coin is a half suvarna, of 72 grains, while the southern coin is a Hun, of 58 grains. Harsha Deva reigned from A.d. 1089 to 1101. The gold coins of ancient India were as follows: --NAMES. Grains..fa Hun, or Fanam. J Hun, or Mada i Hun, or Pratapa. 1 Hun Varaha, or Pagoda 1 Karsha (full weight) i Suvarna 1 Suvarna 1 Nishka, Pala, or Satamana 5-28 13-20 26-40 52-80 57-60 72-00 144-00 576-00 In former days it was the general opinion of classical scholars that the art of coinage had been introduced into India by the Bactrian Greeks.36 Some twenty years ago I pointed out a...

This Book Studies Ancient India S Monetary Economy In Terms Of Its Coinage Through Six Successive Periods From The Janapadas To The Pre-Medieval. It Establish Linkages Between The Ancient Coins And Their References In Ancient Texts.