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The Mashaka Fractional Coinage of Ancient India

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Since the publication in 1985 of the first monograph of the Indian Institute of research in Numismatic Studies in Nashik on Indian Silver Punchmarked Coins – the Magadha-Mauryan Karshapana Series, by P.L.Gupta and T.R.Hardaker, it has become clear that codified and well-ordered type catalogues of the principal series of Indian coinage have an invaluable role to play in the developing study of coin series and the identification of coins from hoards, excavations and other sources. The process of presenting the coin types of a particular series in a systematic way in itself leads to a better understanding of the coins and new ideas about their interpretation.

The Institute and its friends, therefore, decided to prepare and publish a series of type catalogues of Indian coins. The series will cover a large number of volumes and the project will take many years to complete. A similar project, the Roman Imperial Coinage, commenced in 1923 and has taken 70 years to cover the coin types of the Roman Empire.

This monograph on the Mashaka Fractional Coinage of Ancient India provides an orderly type catalogue of another part of the complex coinage of ancient India – a further section of the coinage of the “Punch-marked” period. In this systematic presentation of his data Terry Hardaker has come to some new and important conclusions, about the relative chronology of the mashaka fractions, the reasons for their development and their role as a small value coinage related to the much better known Karshapanas. He is to be congratulated on the clarity and presentation of this material.


DISC PRICE: 1200

Availability: 8 in stock

Author

Terry Hardaker

Year

1999