The Social History from Coins & Currencies has been reconstructed. I have established four hypothesis in reconstructing social history. I find the definition of social history as:
"Comprises the study of Economic, Political and Social
structures, the analysis of collectivities – groups defined by class,
occupation, geographic location, ethnicity, religion, etc. – in the past."
- Louise A. Tilly
The presentation was started with this definition. Then I have shown my hypothesis - what I am going to do. My hypothesis are as follows:
- Monopoly of Royal dynasty had not maintained everywhere.
- Administration can counterfeit coins.
- Currency has diplomatic value.
- Volume of circulation and revenue related to each other.
The first hypothesis stands for ancient Indian empires and their political complexities. If the Janapadas (republic groups) dominates rather the state, they issued coins but if state dominates, only state can issue coins. The second hypothesis I have made because I have to interpret it in very interesting way. Whether a war break out, the state enormous amount of expense. Due to fiscal deficit, state mixed some alloy with the virgin metal and issues coins. The third hypothesis focuses on the historical marriage of Chandragupta I and Princess Kumaradevi. Historians said that there was a treaty between two states to expand the empire. And the fourth hypothesis focus on Seigniorage.
The early civilisation based on self subsistence economy where only the consumable products were exchanged. After the advent of vedic people, the barter economy cames where the purchased products were paid in the unit of cow. But the then time metal was used to gift in rituals. So I can predict the concept of coin was originated from here. The birthplace of coins was Lydia or Ionia. It spreads towards east into Persian empire, west into Greece specifically Sicily and towards north in Macedonia. The coins entered India in two ways (a) from Persian empire to mesopotamia, then to India and (b) from Macedonia to India after Alexander's invasion.
Ancient punch-marked coins contains four to five marks. In general three marks are common, the sun, six-spoke wheel, arches and rest two I was unable to decode, because I don't know them.
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| Presentation before B.I.T.S. - N.C.S.M. board members, in Kolkata. |
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| The one anna coin issued by East India company, in reverse inscription of Lord Rama, Lakshmana & Seeta. |
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| Discussion with DG & DDG, NCSM, Kolkata, Director BITM & Director CRTL, Kolkata. |
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| Discussion with DG, N.C.S.M., Kolkata. |
I have the evidence of reissuing Mauryan Coins. The new king did not want to break the noting of his predecessor and he re-issued His coins with some other marks. The minting process was also interesting. The obverse side of punch-mark coins was engraved of aforesaid signs while the reverse side remains blank. There is a very interesting reason which I find as evidence that, the skillful craftsmen used long sheet of metal and cut it into rectangular shape and during standardizing with Ratti seed (Northern India) the corners were cut - as a result different shapes of coins were seen. The then time only one die was used to engrave negative impression on coins. Later, in Gupta period, two separate dies were used for minting. The tax collection was an important milestone of the then time. To collect tax new policies like land reform and perso-arabic revenue system was introduced, new units of currency was also introduced.
There was many political & religious aspects of coins discussed. During Muhammad bin-tughlak counterfeiters tried to debase the state economy through the copper coins. As a result merchants were refused to accept copper currency. Tughlak had to withdraw all copper currency against gold coins - a huge fiscal deficit occurs.
Finally I had proved my four hypothesis correspondingly in front of the N.C.S.M. board members.
This dissertation work implies a great pleasure to explore the social history in Indian perspective. One can extend his work with the contemporary neighbouring countries as well as the rest of the world.
