Numismatography (Ancient Indian)

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The study of ancient Indian coins is now a well established discipline with a history of more than two centuries behind it. But strangely no work on its historiography has so far been published. The present full-length monograph on this subject is a pioneering study. It critically examines all the important works and research articles published during the last two hundred years or so. Divided into eleven chapters it begins with the progress of the study of the problems of the origin and antiquity of coinage in India (ch.one) and is followed by the historiography of PMC, Local and Tribal Coins, Indo-Greek Coinage, Coinages of the Imperial Scythians and Pahlavas and the Western Kshatrapas and the Coinage of the Kushanas (chs. second to sixth). Then in the next four chs. the numismatography of the Satavahanas, the Guptas, the Vakatakas and the post-Gupta dynasties has been discussed. In the last and concluding ch. some miscellaneous aspects of ancient Indian numismatics, not covered in the study of the coins of various periods and dynasties, have been examined. Thus this monograph is at once a pioneering and comprehensive study of the historiography of ancient Indian numismatics.

Shankar Goyal, M.A., Ph.D., D. Litt., is the retired Professor of History, Jai Narain Vyas University, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, and one of the well known authorities of ancient Indian history and historiography. Apart from numerous articles published in reputed journals, he has authored Recent Historiography of Ancient India, Marxist Interpretation of Ancient Indian History, Contemporary Interpreters of Ancient India, Ancient India: A Multidisciplinary Approach, 175 Years of Vakataka History and Historiography, The Medieval Factor and the Age of Harsha: A Cultural Study, Harsha Revisited: A Re-interpretation of Existing Data, The Significance of Yuan Chwang in the Context of the Seventh Century: A Critical Assessment, State, Society and Culture: Early India 300 AD to 900 AD and, more recently, The Classical Age: A Study in Feudalization. His books and many articles brought him encomiums from scholars such as Professors R.N. Dandekar, G.C. Pande, R.S. Sharma, Irfan Habib, Romila Thapar, R. Champakalakshmi, Shireen Moosvi, Kumkum Roy, A.M. Shastri, Bardwell L. Smith (Minnesota, U.S.A.), Walter M. Spink (Michigan, U.S.A.), Maurizio Taddei (Napoli, Italy), P.K. Mitra (Rajshahi, Bangladesh) and others. In 2009 Professor Goyal presided over the Cultural History Section of the XXIX Annual Session of the South Indian History Congress, in 2012 he was elected General President of the XXXVII Annual Congress of the Epigraphical Society of India, and in 2016 he was invited to preside over the Historiography Section of the XXIII Annual Session of the Tamilnadu History Congress. Recently in December 2017 he presided over Section I (Ancient India) of the 78 th Session of the Indian History Congress held at Jadavpur University, Kolkata (Bengal). He was also invited by the Organising Committee of the 16" World Sanskrit Conference, 2015, Silpakorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, to participate in the deliberations of their Epigraphy Section to promote Indian epigraphical studies on the world forum. He has also travelled extensively in China, Australia, United States, Canada, Europe, Sudan and Egypt.

In the present work I have sought to survey the history of ancient Indian numismatic studies from the late eighteenth century to the early years of twenty-first century. I have also tried to find out along what lines the study of the coinages of various dynasties and periods has progressed. The task was a difficult one, for the works of early savants are not easily available; sometimes even the latest works on the subject are obtainable in India only with great difficulty. Further, the number of research papers scattered in various journals (both numismatic and non-numismatic), standard works, felicitation volumes, commemoration volumes, etc. is almost countless. I had, therefore, no option but consult secondary sources for those works of early savants which I could not consult directly, to candidly admit at a couple of places my failure to consult some recent works and to concentrate my attention on more significant papers and articles at the cost of others. But it has resulted in a glaring shortcoming in my work. As is well-known, quite a few numismatists of high repute, whether of the past or present generation, wrote independent monographs only rarely; they expressed their views in the form of articles. V.S. Agrawala, Jagannath Agrawal, B.Ch. Chhabra, K.D. Bajpai, Upendra Thakur, S.V. Sohoni, etc. of the earlier generation and Lallanji Gopal, Shobhana Gokhale, T.P. Verma and Nisar Ahmad of comparatively younger generation have hardly written any monographs on the subject, though their contributions to numismatic studies demand respectful attention. I have known most of them personally and have great regard for each of them. I have, therefore, naturally tried my best to discuss their more important papers and highlight their respective contributions to the discipline of numismatics, but I know that I must have committed, atleast unconsciously, acts of omission for which I crave for the indulgence of learned readers. However, some of the articles, and also books, I have included in the Addenda.

While on the subject of the shortcomings of the present work, 1 must also confess that it has not been possible for me to discuss post- Vakațaka coins of the Deccan, coins of South India and the Roman coins found in India.

The present work owes its origin to my association with the preparation by my father late Professor S.R. Goyal of his Indigenous Coins of Early India and The Dynastic Coins of Ancient India, both of which ultimately appeared in a combined volume also, titled The Coinage of Ancient India (Jodhpur, 1995). About the same time, in the early years of the 'ninetees, when he was actively engaged in this venture, I was completing my doctoral dissertation on recent historiography of ancient India since Independence which was supplicated to and approved by the Jai Narain Vyas University, Jodhpur, in 1992. Then, as I had selected historiography as my special field of academic pursuits, on my request my father permitted me to contribute sections on the historiography of the coinages of various periods and dynasties for his above-mentioned book. The pages which I contributed to his monograph became the nucleus of the present work on which I started working after I became free from the worries of my thesis.

In the preparation of this monograph I received help and encouragement from various sources. Of course in my every academic venture I have enjoyed the blessings of late G.C. Pande, V.S. Pathak, Lallanji Gopal and A.M. Shastri, whose dedication to Indological studies always instils in me an urge to work. However, the initial suggestion to take up this venture came from my father S.R. Goyal. He also went through the entire manuscript of the work, made valuable suggestions and corrections and let me draw upon the vast storehouse of his knowledge of the subject (as is evidenced by his magnum opus, The Coinage of Ancient India), whenever I was in doubt or need.