DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

172 NUMISMATICS AS A SCIENCE [6.7
The Magadhan court physician Jivaka had studied at Taxila, as had
Candragupta’s minister Canakya ; Candragupta himself, Sandracottos
(or And-racottos) of the Greek records, was supposed as a boy to have
seen Alexander in that region. Panini’s grammar was a product of the
Taxilan province. The change, from a crucial independent trade-center
to a frontier administrative center of the powerful empire whose capital
remained at Patna but which exercised absolute control through a
viceroy, ultimately ruined Taxila. It was completed before 305 B. C.,
perhaps ten years earlier. Nevertheless, a minute study of coins
proves that Magadha enjoyed a special position at Taxila, well before
the conquest.
This study, 4 however, has to be conducted by new, rather difficult,
logically and mathematically rigorous but purely materialist, scientific
methods. A coin is usually characterized by its fabric, alloy, and legend
; the last being the most important makes numismatics a branch of
epigraphy. Undated coins are ordered chronologically by negative
evidence of being found not earlier than such and such a stratum of the
archaeologist’s sequence. None of this will work for the unlettered
coins of the region and period discussed. The marks were punched on
separately by individual punches, which makes them overlap. Oftener
than not, only a portion of the mark is visible on any one coin, which
means comparison of many specimens. The study of punch-marked
coins thus needs patience, superior eyesight, long practice, and a powerful
imagination which adepts rarely control. After all this, the coins can be
arranged only by groups of heraldic sigla that have no hieroglyphic
significance. The problem then is to rank these groups in chronological
order. This can be done only by treating numismatics as a science. The
main purpose of a coin is not to carry a legend, portrait, or
cult-marks but to put into circulation a piece of metal cut to a standard
weight. Every set of coins, as minted, have variation in weight that is
characteristic of the minting technique; no two specimens have exactly
the same weight — on sufficiently accurate balances — even when
hew. The effect of circulation upon the coins is to wear off a very small
amount of the metal at each handling. Again, no two toins would be