Literacy in India

[Stephen Hodge]

If a post-IV writing system was introduced during the Mauryan period,
when was coinage introduced ?   Are the restrictions imposed in the
Vinaya upon bhik.sus regarding the handling of money deemed to
post-date the Buddha's own lifetime ?  If some form of monetary system
was actually operating in Magadha and elsewhere around the time of the
Buddha, this suggests to me accounts and other forms of record-keeping
which in most places involves some kind of writing unless a quipu
system was used as by the Inca.   Does literacy presuppose numeracy or
vice versa ?

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge