Gold Coins

[Enrica Garzilli]

(Following Jan Houben) Dear Patrick Olivelle, since you know Italian, you
might want to read on the birth and the use of script in ancient India (and
on the scholarly debate on this problem), the excellent paper by Paolo
Daffinà, "Sull'uso della scrittura nell'India antica", in RSO, Vol. LXV,
Fasc. 1-2, 1992, pp. 13- 39.

Best,

eg
--
Enrica Garzilli
Uni. of Macerata, Italy
Editor-in-chief, IJTS & JSAWS
Asiatica Association www.asiatica.org
ph. + 39 02 76011 736  fax +39 02 700511864
*************************************
> --- Patrick Olivelle <jpo at UTS.CC.UTEXAS.EDU>
> wrote:
> > Friends:
> >
> > Sorry if this reaches you twice through
> > Indology and ScholarlyServices.
> >
> > I have a question regarding the earliest
> > issuance of gold coins in
> > India. My expertise in numismatics is
> > non-existent, but I hope there
> > will be some among you out there in cyberspace
> > who can throw some
> > light on this (preferably with some biblio
> > references). I gather from
> > some experts that the earliest extant cold
> > coins in India (that is
> > coins that have been found by archaeologists)
> > goes back only to the
> > Kushana period. Do you know of any that go
> > further back?
> >
> > And are there any unambiguous references to
> > gold coins in literature
> > from an earlier period? The mere mention of
> > hiranya or suvarna may
> > not mean much, because the terms may simply
> > refer to gold, gold
> > ornaments, precious substances, etc. The
> > Arthasastra does not seem to
> > have any unambiguous reference to gold coins;
> > in fact gold minting is
> > not mentioned in its section on minting. Manu
> > has several unambiguous
> > references to gold coins (see 8.213, 361,
> > possible  also 8.393 gold
> > masaka) coins. If we can pin down the issue of
> > gold coins in
> > archaeology, then may be this could be one
> > factor in determing the
> > age of a text.
> >
> > Thank you for your help.
> >
> > Patrick Olivelle
>
>
> =====
> Professor Dr. Jan E.M. Houben,
> École Pratique des Hautes Études,
> À la Sorbonne,
> 45-47, rue des Écoles,
> 75005 Paris -- France.
> J_E_M_Houben at yahoo.com
> J.E.M.Houben at let.leidenuniv.nl
>
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