The difficulties of the historian in tracing the fortunes of the
numerous clans and dynasties which contended for sovereignty in the
south from the third to the fourteenth century have been enumerated by
Vincent Smith in his _Oxford History of India_. Even fewer guide-posts
mark the path of the numismatist. Legends on South Indian coins are
rare, and, when they occur are short, giving simply the ruler’s name or
title: dates are rarer still. As in the early coinage of the Greeks,
the heraldic symbol or cognizance serves as the stamp of authority;
the fish, for example, is so used by the rulers of the Pāṇḍya dynasty.
But in India we receive little help from contemporary records; and the
habit, which conquerors indulged, of incorporating on their issues
the cognizance of vanquished peoples, and the extensive imitation of
popular and well-established types, worse confounds the confusion.
In assigning coins to dynasties reliance has often to be placed upon
the evidence of find-spots, a dubious method at all times, but least
unsatisfactory for copper, which seldom circulates freely beyond the
country of its origin. Again, the isolation of the southern peninsula
is as marked in the development of the coinage as in political history.
With the sole exception of the elephant pagodas of the Gajapati
dynasty, imitated by Harsha-deva of Kashmīr, there is no certain point
of contact between the south and the north after the third century
A.D. Finally, the currency of the south has not received that attention
from scholars which has been bestowed upon the more attractive money
of the north. A careful systematic study, in conjunction with the
historical material now available, would doubtless throw considerable
light upon it and its strikers.
Certain marked characteristics belong to the coinage of the south,
which, in spite of foreign irruptions and their consequent innovations,
have persisted until recent times. Gold and copper were the metals
used almost exclusively; of the former there were two denominations,
the _hūn_, _varāha_ or _pagoda_[37] (50 to 60 grains) and the _fanam_
(five to six grains), based respectively on the weights of two seeds,
the _kaḷanju_ or molucca bean (_Cæsalpina bonduc_) and the _mañjāḍi_
(_Adenathera pavonina_). Copper coins were called _kāsu_, of which
the English corruption is “cash,” while the rare silver coins appear
to have followed the gold standard. The Travancore silver _chakram_
was equal in weight to the fanam. The gold coin had an independent
development in the south, the various stages of which can be marked.
The earliest specimens—the age of these is doubtful—are spherules of
plain gold with a minute punch-mark on one side (Pl. VII, 1); these
developed into the cup-shaped “padma-ṭaṅkas,” stamped with punches,
first on one side only, later on both obverse and reverse. Finally came
die-struck pieces, of which the small thick Vijayanagar pagodas are
the typical southern form. Another characteristic is the preference
for tiny coins: this is particularly evident from about the sixteenth
century, when copper coins tend to decrease in size, and the fanam
acquired a wide popularity; the silver _tārēs_ of Kalikat (Calicut),
which weigh only one or two grains, must be the smallest known
currency.[38] A great variety of devices and symbols, usually Hindu
gods and emblems, also characterizes the copper currency, especially
after the fifteenth century, and this feature adds considerably to the
difficulty of correct attribution.
[37] _Hūn_ is a Hindustānī corruption of _honnu_, Kanarese for “a half
pagoda”; _Varāha_ is probably derived from the boar (varāha) cognizance
on Eastern Chālukya coins; the origin of _Pagoda_, as introduced by
the Portuguese and applied to this coin, is obscure, cf. Yule and
Burnell, _Hobson-Jobson_ under “Pagoda.” The considerable variation
in the weight of the pagodas issued by different dynasties may be due
simply to different local standards; but if the Chālukyas were, as is
supposed, of Gurjara origin, the heavier weights of their coins may
reflect the influence of the “dramma.”
[38] The silver _hemitetartemoria_ of Athens weighed 1·4 grs. each.
The dynasties of the south may be divided into two territorial
groups—(1) the kingdoms of the Deccan—all the country between the river
Narbadā on the north and the Kṛishṇa and Tuṅgabhadrā on the south—and
the Mysore country; Telugu was the language of the former, Kanarese
of the latter. (1) The remainder of the peninsula, where Tamil and
its cognate dialects were spoken, the country of the Pāṇḍyas, Cheras,
Choḷas, Pallavas and their successors.
During the first two centuries of the Christian era, and even after
the disappearance of the silver punch-marked coins, perhaps about A.D.
200, the currency of the south consisted chiefly of imported Roman
gold[39] along with the spherules already mentioned. A certain quantity
of Roman silver must also have been in circulation, while the small
copper pieces bearing Roman devices and legends—one of them seems to
give the name of the Emperor Theodosius (A.D. 393)—were probably local
productions.
Conjecture has assigned the earliest coins connected with a local
dynasty to the Kurumbas, a pastoral tribe inhabiting the present Arcot
district. One type of these copper pieces with a two-masted ship on the
obverse is evidently derived from the similar Andhra issues struck for
the Coromandel coast, and so may belong to the third century A.D.
[39] In 1850 a large number of Roman aurei, amounting, it is said, to
five coolie loads, were unearthed near Kannanur: most emperors between
Augustus, 29 B.C., and Antoninus Pius, A.D. 161, were represented. Cf.
“Remarks on Some Lately Discovered Roman Coins,” _J.A.S.B._, 1851, p.
371.