A History of Money in India
Punch-Marked Coins: India's First Money
How some of India's earliest coins, stamped with symbols rather than rulers' faces, appeared around the 6th century BCE and supported growing trade.
Some of the earliest coins in India, known as punch-marked coins, appeared around the 6th century BCE, roughly the same era as the first coins in Lydia and China.
What they looked like
- Mostly silver, sometimes copper.
- Irregular pieces of metal cut to a standard weight.
- Stamped with symbols such as the sun, animals, trees and geometric shapes, using separate punches, hence the name.
- Unlike later coins, they usually didn’t show rulers’ faces or names.
A common unit was the karshapana.
Who issued them
They were issued by mahajanapadas, the large kingdoms and republics of ancient India, and later by the Mauryan Empire. Merchant guilds may also have issued some.
Why coins mattered
- Growing cities and trade along the Ganges plain needed a reliable medium of exchange.
- Standard weights made coins easier to trust than weighing silver each time.
- Coins helped states collect taxes and pay armies and officials.
The Arthashastra
Kautilya’s Arthashastra, associated with the Mauryan period, describes a state mint, officials who tested coins and penalties for counterfeiting.
Legacy
Hoards of punch-marked coins found across India show how widely they circulated, from the north to the south.
A merchant in Pataliputra sells cloth and is paid in silver punch-marked coins. He recognises their stamped symbols and trusts their weight, so he can use them to buy grain without weighing silver.
Early punch-marked coins used symbols rather than rulers' portraits.
- Punch-marked coins appeared in India around the 6th century BCE.
- They were mostly silver, stamped with symbols from separate punches.
- Mahajanapadas and the Mauryan Empire issued them.
- The Arthashastra describes mints and counterfeiting penalties.
No recording for this one yet - EconReader can read it aloud for you.