Coins and History

People have a deep interest in history, and that is why they go around the world, endure cold, heat, rain, and floods to study human past.

Coins are one of the best artifacts to study the past, mainly because they contain precious inscriptions. This is very true of a country like India which has more than 4000 years of recorded history and almost 3000 years of coinage. What is more, what is a single country known as India today was more than 1000 small and large kingdoms, many of which have left very few inscriptions, or the inscriptions of which have not been discovered yet.

I got interested in Indian coins when one of my students reminded me that my quest for Indian history is incomplete without coins. There was no turning back since then.

Shastri JC Philip
www.CoinsEncyclopedia.org

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Comment by Bimal Trivedi on January 8, 2009 at 1:04am: Similarly India was one country and at certain times bigger than present size.

At various intervals India was a one country bigger than today's size when uniform coinages were existing, viz., Magadh, Maurya/post Maurya PMC series etc. The Gupt empire ruled by various illustrative kings had another series of coins which were totally different in style, art and denomination.

At certain point of time the states were as big as some of the sovereign nations of today across the world, e.g., Malwa (Kshatrap rules), Deccan under Satvahan rules etc.
Then came disentigration and many sates came into existence including some city states having their own coinage.

The Mughal empire was again integrating India before disintegrating post Aurangzeb's rule. till his time there were uniform coinage.

Then again came disintegration of the empires and there were large and small states numbering to thousand. This remained for 200 years and when integration was tried but the states existed as tributaries to various colonial powers, having different coinages.

Interesting subject indeed!

Comment by Shastri JC. Philip on January 8, 2009 at 3:58am: Thank you very much Bimal for the additional information. Can you tell us how wide the Malwa kingdom was

Shastri JC Philip
www.CoinsEncyclopedia.org

Comment by Bimal Trivedi on January 8, 2009 at 6:29am: May be of different sizes during the rules of the following various rulers (at least the size of today's Gujarat state, generally speaking)

1 Kshatrapa Empire
2 Indirect rule of Gupta Empire
3 Direct rule of Gupta Empire
4 Pratihara Empire
5 Parmara Empire

later, mughals etc

Comment by Shastri JC. Philip on January 8, 2009 at 7:27am: Thanks Bimal !!

Please keep guiding us into information about Indian Coins that can help everyone in this group.

Shastri JC Philip
www.CoinsEncyclopedia.org

Comment by Bimal Trivedi on January 9, 2009 at 2:02am: Area of Indian State V/s a some Country (in Sq Km)

Rajasthan 342336 Poland 312685
Madhya Pradesh 308144 Italy 301230
Maharashtra 307713 England 244820

Now once can imagine the size of various ancient indian kingdoms accordingly.