Ever since the existence of civilisations, humans have been trading to facilitate exchange. But trading can happen without coins by recording debt. In fact, it is debt or rinn — the word found in the Rig Veda — that played an important role in the creation of coins.
While we do not have evidence of coinage in Harappa, we find cowrie shells that might have been used by Harappans as currency. Think of the Hindi phrase, “Ek phooti kaudi nahin doonga” (I won’t give a single penny) — four phooti kaudi (broken cowrie shells) make one cowrie shell, and thus, currency.
Even today, you can see women in temples with necklaces of cowries shells. It indicates that similar to gold coins, that some women also wear around their neck, cowrie shells were used as currency for exchange in the past.
Cowrie shells were found in the Maldive islands and were used as currency in both Africa and India until the 16th century when the Portuguese broke the system.
Apart from cowrie shells, people across the world used different things as currency. In South America, for example, some communities used cocoa beans as currency.
Metal coins
However, today, when we talk of coins, we speak of metal coins. Merchants, nomadic people, and armies — all mobile people who used to settle their accounts before moving on — used coins.
Some of the earliest metal coins — silver and copper – used in India came from the Mauryans because of a mercantile boom in the greater Bihar region. These copper and silver coins were also known as Karshapana or punch-marked coins.
The word ‘kosha’ or treasury comes from Karshapana. The English word cash is also derived from Karshapana.
Greece, China, and India were using coinage around the same time after 500 BC. These coins were issued by mercantile guilds and bore the images of natural objects like the sun and moon.
In the Kushan period, gold coins emerged for the first time. Concurrently, the images of Buddha as well as the king were used for the first time on these coins.
In the Gupta period, the gold coins (dinara) have images of the king and queen, along with gods and goddesses such as Lakshmi and the warrior son of Shiva and Parvati – Skanda.
Decline in gold coins
After the Gupta period, there was an apparent decline in gold coins. The kings were no longer issuing it with their faces. Perhaps, they did not find the need for it, because long-distance trade with countries as far flung as Rome was replaced by short-distance trade, where markets opened up.
The need for such gold coins had, thus, gone down. Instead, the old system of recording debt to settle accounts resumed.
Around 700-800 CE, coinage was found in the Northern and Western parts of India where the Pratiharas ruled. The Rashtrakutas in the South and Palas in Bengal, on the other hand, did not feel the need for royal coinage to settle accounts.
However, this was not a decline in trade but a change in trading patterns as more regional economies were emerging. Coins, thus, reveal something important about our culture too.
Coins and culture
Between 500 CE and 1000 CE, Indo-Sassanian coins were popular in the North-West of India. These coins show the fire altar on the obverse – alluding to Zoroastrian kings – and geometric representation of kings on the reverse.
The Chola coins have classic symbols — tiger and two fishes — because they traded across the seas with the Shailendras in Indonesia, Java, etc.
After the 12th century, coins became important in the Islamic period when a Sultan placed his name on coins as a marker of his authority.
Although Islam prohibits the use of images, in the first phase coins have names of kings in Arabic script along with the images of Hindu gods and kings. It could be alluded to the fact that people had trust in coins with images of gods.
In the next phase, the Tanka or the Rupiya (from Raupya or silver, of which India had a shortage, thus more value) of the Khiljis had Arabic script and not royal or godly imagery.
During the reign of the Mughals, there was bold experimentation like the Jahangiri coins which had his image — although prohibited in Islam — along with Zodiac signs. But his successor Shah Jahan melted all these coins as the Ulema did not approve of it.
When Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj came to power in the 17th Century, coronating himself as a Hindu king, he minted gold coins with his name in Devanagari script and thus declared his sovereign status.
However, not all coins were used for political and economic reasons. The Rama Tanka or pilgrimage token found across North India is one such example.
During the Vijayanagara Empire, Varaha or Pagoda coins were very important in creating trust among communities. These were used even in Sultanates and by European traders, reminding us that markets valued money more than religion.
