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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
COINS inscription of Îśvarasêna. According to Manu,1 the kārshāpana was a copper coin, but some other Sanskrit and Pāli works,2 leave no doubt that it was a denomination of silver coins also. Prof. Rapson has shown that the reference to gifts of kārshāpanas in the inscriptions of the Sātavāhanas and the Kshaharāta Kshatrapas must be understood as referring to the silver coins of those dynasties which circulated in Maharashtra and Konkan. The kārshāpanas referred to in the Nasik inscription of Îśvarasêna must, therefore, have been silver coins, probably of the Western Kshatapas. These coins have the head of the Kshatrapa or Mahākshatrapa with the date in the Ŝaka era on the obverse, and the chaitya (or hill), the sun and the crescent with a legand along the edge inside a circle of dots on the revese. There average weight is about 34 grains. These silver coins, though called kārshāpanas, were not, therefore, struck to the standard weight of 32 ratis mentioned in Sanskrit works.3 They were evidently copied from the hemidrachmas of Apollodotus and Menander, which, according to the Periplus,4 were current in Barygaza (modern Broach).
The Coins of the Traikutakas The Traikūtakas, who succeeded the Ābhiras in Maharashtra and Gujarat, had their
own silver coinage. The first notice of this coinage can be traced back to 1862. In that
year Mr. Justice Newton described, in the journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic
Society, Vol. VII, pp. II ff., a coin of Dahrasēna which had been found at Karhad. He
noticed on it the title Mahārāja of both Dahrasēna and his father Indradatta, but could not
read the names of these prices completely as the letters were only partially preserved.
Thereafter in 1886, in an article entitled ‘Two New Grants of the Chālukya Dynasty’
published in the Transactions of the of the Vienna Oriental Congress, p. 222, Pandit Bhagvanlal
Indraji described a coin of this dynasty which he has obtained from Daman in
Gujarat.5 He deciphered the legend on it as Mahārāj-Endravarmma-putra-paramavaishnava-
śri-Mahārāja-Rudragana.6 He thought that Rudragana was the first king after the reviral
of the Traikūtaka power on the downfall of the Kshatrapas. Afterwards in 1905, Prof.
Rapson showed that the correct reading of the legend on this coin and on those acquired
by the British Museum was Mahārāj-Endradatta-putra-paramavaishnava-śri-Mahārāja-Dabra-
sēna. He identified this Dahrasēna with the Traikūtaka king Dahrasēna, whose Pārsī
plates dated in the (Kalachuri) year 207 had already been published.7 Prof. Rapson also
in 1904 from the collection of Dr. Gerson da Cunha.8 He correctly read the legend on it
as Mhāhāraja-Dabrasēna-putra-paramavaishnava-śri-Mahārāja-Vyāgbrasēna and thus showed
that it was issued by the Traikūtaka king Vyāghrasēna, the son of Dahrasēna.
In 1905 a hoard of Traikūtaka coins was discovered at Kāzad in the Indāpur tālukā
of the Poona district. Only 359 coins were recovered from it. They were examined by
Rev.H.R. Scott, who published an account of them in the journal of the Bombay Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. XXIII, pp. I ff. Of these, 353 coins were of Dahrasēna. 1MSM., adhyāya VIII, v.136
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