Second coin of india Oficca

Gandhara janapada, Silver satamana, c. 5th-4th century BCE

Gandhara janapada, Silver satamana, c. 5th-4th century BCE

Three "septa-radiate" punches/Blank

Weight: 11.46 gm., Dim: 43 x 22 mm.

This is Indian History Second Official Document Coins . The launched By Gandhara Janapada is 4 th To  5Th Century . The coin Weight Is 11.46 G.M

This is a silver satamana of approximately 11.5 gm. from the Gandhara janapada, also dating from some time late in the 5th or from the 4th century BCE. This type is called a "bent bar" to reflect its ingot-like shape, curved into a crescent by the force of the two punches applied to its ends. The punches are produced by the same die. Most coins have just two punches, one at each end, but I have seen a few rare ones, such as the illustrated coin, that have a third punch in the center of the bar. The punches are always of this "septa-radiate" symbol, six "petals" radiating from a central circle accompanied by a seventh "stem."

This coin type has been used by some writers, notably Joe Cribb of the British Museum, to serve as evidence that coinage was not invented independently in India, but rather was derived from Greek sources. There exist some very rare coins of Kyrene that feature a design, probably representing a silphium flower, that resembles the punches on the Gandharan bent bars. Further, it is known that the Achaemenids, who ruled the Gandharan region in the 5th - 4th century BCE, resettled some political “trouble-makers” from Kyrene somewhere in their Indian satrapy. It has therefore been suggested that these Greeks from Kyrene brought with them the idea of coin-making from which the Gandharan bent bar resulted. In this view, these bent bars would not be issues of the Gandhara janapada but rather of the Achaemenid satrapy of India.

Most Indian numismatists do not accept this view, and I personally feel that the Gandharan coins offer evidence precisely of the opposite conjecture, that coinage was invented independently in India. The reason is that they are completely unlike any coins that circulated in Persia, such as the running king type, obviously inspired by Greek coins. Nor do they resemble the Kyrene coins in shape or method of manufacture. For coins so radically different from the Greek or Persian style coinage to circulate in a satrapy of the Persian empire, it must have been the case that they already had a history of commercial use in the area. The Persians must have discovered, as did the Greeks after them, that Indian merchants did not take easily to new styles of coinage; they liked to stick with tried and true designs with which they were familiar.