Numismatics | Indian Coins, Epigraphy, Trade, and Archaeological Evidence

The IJA has published one of the largest numismatic corpora in any single Indian archaeology journal, with coin catalogues and hoard reports appearing in nearly every volume. Coverage spans punch-marked coins, cast copper coins, coins of the Panchala kings, coins of Kannauj, Koch Bihar coins, Kushan gold, Gupta gold, medieval coins of the Sultanate, Mughal, and Awadh periods, and rare or newly reported series such as the Kārddamaka coins of the Western Kṣatrapas and the coins of Didda of Kashmir.

Key Sites and Hoards

• Jajmau (District Kanpur) - hoard of 778 Imperial Magadha punch-marked coins in a NBP vase
• Sitapur district - numerous coin find-spots covering a wide chronological range
• Imaliya Sultanpur (District Sitapur) - coin hoard
• Shravasti - punch-marked coin collection and Ayodhya coin hoard from Kanjadwa village, District Shravasti
• Alwar, Rajasthan - 100 punch-marked coins
• Gonda, U.P. - 44 punch-marked coins
• Rataul (District Baghpat) - 68 Kushan coins
• Gangoh (District Saharanpur) - 19 Sultanate coins
• Khedi Khushnam (District Shamli) - 18 Alauddin Khilji coins
• Kaushambi - uninscribed copper cast coins (UCCC)
• Ahichchhatra area - Panchala coins including the series of Achyut, last Panchala king
• State Museum Lucknow - catalogued: Indo-Greek/Sasanian, Kushan, Gupta, Medieval North and South Indian, Delhi Sultanate, Mughal, Awadh, British gold coins (Vols. 7–8)
• Allahabad Museum - 237 gold coins of different periods (Vol 9, No. 2)

Key Findings

1. Magadha imperial punch-marks at Jajmau (Vol 6, No. 1): A hoard of 778 silver punch-marked coins hidden in a NBP ware vase is the largest single punch-marked hoard in the corpus and firmly ties the Jajmau area to the Magadha empire’s western trading networks.
2. Panchala numismatics (Vols. 9–10): A multi-part series on Panchala coins, including the coins of Achyut, the last Panchala king defeated by Samudragupta, reconstructs the complete sequence of the Panchala dynastic series.
3. Kārddamaka coins (Vol 7, No. 2): New coins of Dāmaghsada reconstructs the political sequence of Western Kṣatrapas from Ghsamotika to Rudradaman I, resolving a long-standing chronological ambiguity.
4. Diddā of Kashmir (Vol 4, No. 1): Study of coins of Queen Didda and the legend ‘Di-Kshemagupta’ clarifies the numismatic record of early medieval Kashmir’s famous queen-regent.
5. Koch Bihar coins (Vol 2, No. 4): The Koch Bihar Palace Museum collection documents the coin series of a northeastern dynasty seldom covered in mainstream numismatic literature.
6. Ring currency (Vol 10, No. 3): Copper ring-bangles from OCP contexts are demonstrated to follow the tola weight standard, identified as the earliest form of ring currency in the subcontinent.
7. Mould for fake coins (Vol 6, No. 3): A 2nd–1st century B.C. mould for producing counterfeit punch-marked coins, found at Kaushambi, suggests that once standard punch-mark production ceased, forgery became a documented phenomenon.