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The punch marks were manufactured by subdividing bars of metal or strips cut from a hammered silver, weight being adjusted where necessary by clipping the corners of each coin so formed. The obverse is usually covered with punch marks, often overlapping and clearly impressed at different times; the marks on the reverse, on the other hand, are usually fewer in number, in the great number of cases one only, are less distinct, and frequently smaller. These archaic coins were probably issued "by local authorities-money-changers or merchants" and were submitted by then for the approval of the local king or governor, whose stamp appears on the reverse. The punch marks on the other side, once blank, being those of the successive money-changers, through whose hand they passed in the course of circulation (Theobald, Notes on some Symbols; Rapson, Counter-marks). In Lanka these marks are absent from the obverse of the majority of the later dumpy pieces. On none of the punch marks found locally have I been able to trace on the reverse any constantly recurring symbol which can be attributed to the Island, such as the railed swastika of the copper die-struck issues I am, therefore, inclined to the belief that all punch marks current in Lanka were imported from India.
If the Arthasastra is to be credited, in Magadha in the time of Candragupta there were coined, at least in theory, in addition to the silver pana or punch marks, its half, quarter, and eighth, and in copper the, whole and half mashaka, corresponding with Manu's karshapana, and its quarter and eighth, the whole and half kakini (op cit., Bk. I,Chap.12 ). As Canakya, before his master's accession to the throne, is said to have amassed treasure by re-coining (Chap. II, sec. I) the introduction of a State mint, perhaps, may have been due to the policy of the founder of the Maurya Empire.
The standard of the silver punch mark is the dharana of 32 gunjas; in the South it is said by Elliot to have been the kalanju seed, but in practice there was little or no difference, even if the two standards were not identical.
3. In Lanka very few copper punch marks appear to be known other than
the cores of silver coins, often with traces of the coating still
adhering: The majority of the silver pieces are much worn, and really
good specimens are rare.
The coins fall into two main classes; (1)
rectangular and (2) roughly circular or oval ; each of these again has
a cross division into (a) thin and (b) thick. Though no clear line of
separation exists, the thickness varying from that of thin cardboard
to about 3 mm, the difference between the thin and wide coins,
usually covered with punch marks, which are the earliest
(Pl. 1 ; Cunningham, Coins of Ancient India, p. 43), and the thick and rather Dumpy pieces
or ingots, very often blank with a few indentations
(Pl. 2), is very
marked. These latter are both, rectangular, and circular, and seems to
have been made in these shapes; the oval thin punch marks appear to have
been originally rectangular, and subsequently reduced to their present
shape by the process of clipping referred to. The available specimen
of the thin variety up to and including a thickness of 1.0 mm
weigh from 0.97 (very worn) to 3.27 grams, the average of 36 being
1.98 grams; the seventeen thinnest, however, ranging from 0.97 to
2.92 grams only give an average of 1.72. The highest weight for the
available thick rectangular coins is 3.16 grams and the lowest 1.34,
of which last the size is only 13 by. 11 mm; the average of
twenty-one is 2.23 grams, as against Parker's average of 2.13 for
thirteen (Ancient Ceylon, p.472). The thick circular pieces, of which
eight average 2.19 grams, vary from 1.68 to 2.80 grams. The total
average of twenty-nine thick coins of both varieties is 2.22
grams. Inferences drawn from these and similar figures to prove the
duration of the use of the punch mark currency are apt to be fallacious,
for the lighter coins may be the fractional pieces of the
Arthasrastra.
4. In process of time the punch marks, perhaps only in certain
localities and trough the state monopoly of coinage, become fixed,
though relative position slightly varied; rectangular punch marks of this
kind are figured in Loventhal's work in Pl. I, Nos, 4, 5, and 6. The
only ones reported from Lanka bear on one side a. Three men or a man
and two women standing in a row, b. A Peacock on a Chaitiya, and c. A
balance or scales (cf. Theobald Fig. 9) , arranged thus :-
| Size mm | Weight grams | Reference | ||||||
| (i) |
| 15.7 x 11.0 x 2.0 | 2.99 | |||||
| (ii) |
| 15.5 x 11.9 x 3.0 | 2.90 | (CA,I,iii, Pl.X ,nos 2,3 ) |
On the reverse of both is symbol (b), Pieces with these punch marks appear in I.M.C., I, p 138 Nos 37-40;No. 37 shown in Pl, XIX, 3, is the same as (i) and weights 3.39 grams.
5. The double-die thick plaque, having on the obverse a dagoba and on the reverse a bo-leaf, and weighing from 4.99 to 5.38 grams, with a size of 13 by 8.4 mm (Lowsley, Pl.VIII, 1) is probably a votive offering as is also the plaque shown in the Taprobanian of June, 1888, p 53. Both seems to be modern. With them may be compared crystal seal described by Mr. H. C. P. Bell in " Two Buddhist Seals " in the Ceylon Antiquary Vol. III Pt 1, PI, VII.