Punch-marked coins

[2][3] 19th-century proposals which suggested an origin from as early as 1000 BC, independent of the introduction of coins in Asia Minor, are "no longer given any credence".

[2] According to Osmund Bopearachchi, the first punch-marked coins in the Indian Subcontinent may have been minted around the 6th century BC by the Mahajanapadas of the Indo-Gangetic Plain.

[4] Accoriding to E. J. Rapson, the earliest punch-marked coins were karshapana produced by early Indian kingdoms and tribes before foreign influence.

As mentioned by Pāṇini in his work Aṣṭādhyāyī (350 BCE), Panini categorized ancient Indian coins as Karshapanas, either marked or unmarked (punched).

The hoard contained a tetradrachm minted in Athens c. 500-480 BC, together with a number of local types as well as silver cast ingots.

Punches on these coins count to 450 different types with the most common the sun and six-armed symbols, and various forms of geometrical patterns, circles, wheels, human figures, various animals, bows and arrows, hills and trees etc.

A hoard of mostly Mauryan punch-marked coins
Punch-marked coins discovered from Chandraketugarh .
“Babyal Hoard” type, of the Kuru Janapada (350 - 315 BCE)
Silver, ½ Karshapana coin, “Babyal Hoard” type, of the Kuru Janapada (450 BC - 315 BC)
"Bent bar" of the Gandhara Janapda unearthed with Achaemenid and Greek coins, Gandhara , c.350 BC. [ 8 ] [ 9 ]
Punch-marked coin of the Nanda dynasty of Magadha. The five symbols on this coin are: Sun symbol, six-armed (Magadha) symbol, bull on hilltop, Indradhvaja flanked by four taurines, elephant. There's also an unofficial countermark on the reverse.