DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

178 WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION 16.7
was of low birth. The Mauryans seem to have come immediately
after him, for no other coinage intervenes between his and the newest
issue in the hoard. These newest coins can only be those of Candragupta
Maurya. The Peshawar hoard shows Mahapadma’s coins counterstruck
with the Mauryan crescent-on-arches, for reissue, which supports
the conclusion that a violent change of dynasty accompanied the change
of coinage.
The wealth of the Nandas was proverbial. The tradition i.s
confirmed by the high standard of their coinage, with richer alloy, thinner
and finer fabric. The Mauryan coins (after the first ruler) show a far
greater pressure upon the currency, reflected by a heavier
debasement (copper more than half the alloy !), and much cruder
initial weighing. During the second world war, the same phenomenon
could be noticed with British Indian coins, which were successively of
cheaper and cheaper metal, with decidedly more variation in minted weight,
though supplemented by a flood of paper currency. The difference
between the Mauryan and pre-Mauryan coins is manifested by comparison
of the hoard with another of 183 Mauryan punch-marked coins found
also in the Bhor mound, approximately dated by a fresh coin of Diodotos
to about 248 B. C.
The reverse (tails) marks are far more interesting in their own
way. Pre-Mauryan coins were issued without any reverse ma r ks at all
many being found with blank reverse. These marks are much smaller
than on the obverse, not to.be grouped into fixed sets, and far more in
number than the obverse. If one ignores the ‘ heads’ and merely
groups the coins by the number of marks on the reverse, then the
remarkable fact emerges that the average weight goes down regularly
(fig. 27) with the increase in number of reverse marks. The
correlation is exactly the same as with pre-war British Indian rupees
and their dates. Now these reverse marks are found even on Persian
coins from the Levant, so they could not have been Maga-dhan, nor
royal. They seem to belong to traders, who were financiers, bankers,
and dealers in precious metals at the same time. To this day, such
Indian ‘ Shroffs’ have their own marks known only to initiates, which
they put on a piece of tested metal to record the fact of testing. In our
case, the marks would correspond to modern countersignatures on