A short history of Indian coins

India has one of the longest continuous coinage traditions in the world. Here are the periods you'll meet on Mohurly, with what to look for in each.

Ancient India

The first Indian coins, from around the 6th century BCE, were punch-marked silver pieces (karshapanas): bits of silver stamped with symbols such as the sun, animals and hills. Later came the coins of the Indo-Greeks, with portraits and Greek legends; the Kushans, whose gold set the standard for centuries; and the Guptas, whose gold dinars are among the most beautiful Indian coins.

Sultanates and the rupee

The Delhi Sultanate and the regional sultanates (Bengal, Gujarat, Malwa, the Bahmanis and others) struck coins in silver, copper and billon with Arabic and Persian legends. In the 1540s Sher Shah Suri introduced the silver rupiya of about 11.5 grams, the ancestor of the rupee we use today.

The Mughal Empire

The Mughals, from Akbar onwards, made the silver rupee, the copper dam and the gold mohur the coins of a subcontinent. Mughal coins name the emperor and the mint town and are dated in the Hijri calendar and by the emperor's regnal year; Jahangir's portrait and zodiac coins are famous rarities.

Princely states

Hundreds of states struck their own coins, some until the 1940s: Baroda, Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore, Kutch, Jaipur, Gwalior, Indore and many more. Many carry local scripts and dates in local eras (Vikram Samvat, Kollam), which makes them a rewarding field to study.

The East India Company and British India

The East India Company's presidencies (Bengal, Bombay and Madras) struck their own coins until the uniform coinage of 1835, in the name of William IV. After 1858 the coins bore the portrait of Victoria (as Empress from 1877), then Edward VII, George V and George VI. Silver rupees were reduced to 50 per cent silver in 1940 and replaced by nickel in 1947.

The Republic

The first coins of the Republic, the Anna series of 1950, replaced the king's portrait with the Ashoka lion capital, the bull and the horse. On 1 April 1957 India went decimal: 100 naye paise to the rupee ("naye", new, was dropped in 1964). Since 1964 India has also issued commemorative coins, from Gandhi and Nehru to the FAO series, which are among the most collected Indian coins today.