Coins of ancient India

The first coins

The timeline of money in India shows that coins were among its earliest forms, from around 600 BCE. In those days rulers issued coins for the people of their kingdoms, so each kingdom had its own coinage, and the ruler alone controlled minting, the making of coins. Over time, coins issued by strong rulers began to be used in other kingdoms too, which made trade across regions easier.

Karshapanas and panas

The coins were made of precious metals such as gold, silver and copper, or of their alloys, metals made by mixing two or more metals, which makes coins stronger. They were called karshapanas or panas, and they had symbols punched on them called rupas, a word that sounds like our rupee. Forms of the word pana still mean money: panam in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam, and hana in Kannada. Ancient coins were often alloys of silver and copper; today’s coins are alloys made largely of iron, with chromium, silicon and carbon mixed in exact amounts.

Heads and tails

Every coin has two sides: the obverse, or head, which bears the main design, and the reverse, or tail. Ancient Indian coins showed animals, trees and hills, kings or queens, and deities. Coins of the Chalukyas of Kalyana, for example, show Varaha, an avatar of Vishnu, on one side and a decorated three-tiered parasol on the other, while a silver coin of the Cholas, who ruled from 850 to 1279 CE, carries their tiger emblem.

Roman gold in the south

Coins also reveal trade. Gold coins bearing the heads of Roman kings have been excavated at Pudukkottai in Tamil Nadu, and Roman coins have turned up in parts of Kerala too. They show that southern India traded busily with the wider world by sea, and because so much gold came in, scholars conclude that the trade was in India’s favour. The use of coinage itself helped India’s sea trade grow.

Annas, paise and the rupee sign

Not long ago, a rupee was divided into 16 annas, and a dozen bananas cost just one anna in 1947. The book shows a half anna of 1942, a quarter anna of 1918, a one-anna coin of 1943 and a one-paisa coin of 1945. In 1957 India moved to decimal money, with 100 paise to the rupee. Today’s coins come in different sizes for different denominations, with both Hindi and English on each, and special coins mark important national events, such as 75 years of independence.

The Government of India adopted the ₹ symbol in 2010. Designed by Udaya Kumar of IIT Bombay, it blends the Devanagari ‘Ra’ with the Roman ‘R’, and its two lines on top stand for the national flag and the ‘equal to’ sign.

Why it matters

Coins are small, but they record who ruled, what people believed and whom they traded with, so historians read them like documents. You can start a small collection by gathering old coins from family and neighbours and noting each one’s metal, year and designs. How coins fit into the larger story of money is in functions and forms of money, and barter in the barter system. Answers to every question are in the NCERT solutions for Chapter 11; see also the full Chapter 11 notes.