page_title: Coinage of India
section_title: Early historic period (early 1st millennium BCE – 300 BCE)
hierarchical_section_title: Coinage of India / Early historic period (early 1st millennium BCE – 300 BCE)
caption_attribution_description: English: Kosala Karshapana. Circa 525-465 BC. Average diameter 25mm, average weight 2.70 gm. Each piece with a variety of separate punch-marks applied to both sides.
context_page_description: Coinage of India began anywhere between early 1st millennium BCE to the 6th century BCE, and consisted mainly of copper and silver coins in its initial stage. The coins of this period were Karshapanas or Pana. A variety of earliest Indian coins, however, unlike those circulated in West Asia, were stamped bars of metal, suggesting that the innovation of stamped currency was added to a pre-existing form of token currency which had already been present in the Janapadas and Mahajanapada kingdoms of the Early historic India. The kingdoms that minted their own coins included Gandhara, Kuntala, Kuru, Panchala, Magadha, Shakya, Surasena and Surashtra etc.
  The tradition of Indian coinage in the 2nd millennium evolved with Indo Islamic rule in India. and the British raj in the 19th century.
caption: Kosala karshapanas. Circa 525-465 BC. Average diameter 25mm, average weight 2.70 gm. Each piece with a variety of separate punch-marks applied to both sides.
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