Saurashtra (C.450-50BC) Surasena (C.500-350BC)

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Pieter Anne van't Haaff, born in 1928 in Sneek, The Netherlands, studied economics at the University of Amsterdam and worked till his retirement in 1990 with KLM, the national airline of the Netherlands. After retirement he was active as freelance consultant for an international organisation. Numismatics has fascinated him for more than 35 years. Numerous visits to India helped focus his interest on the coinage of Ancient India and the Near East. He is a Fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society and a member of the Oriental Numismatic Society. He is married and grandfather of four young boys and resides in the Netherlands.

This study is part of the AHATA project which aims at creating a comprehensive catalogue of ancient Indian punch marked coinage. The information in this book will be part of the CD-ROM database which will be constructed covering all these coins.

The AHATA symbol numbering system is applied for the main, auxiliary symbols and the bankers marks. Future new types can be catalogued without disturbing the present categorisation.

Book One Saurashtra

Some years ago I had the opportunity to study a few lots of Saurashtra ¼ Karshapanas. The elegant style of the images on some of the coins caught my attention, a style rather different from the punch-marked coins I had seen earlier. The enigmatic fact that practically all of the coins had been re-struck several times raised my curiosity.

The results of that study was published in a Supplement to the ONS Newsletter 170 (2001). Since then, with the help of the IIRNS, Dr. Dilip Rajgor and Mr. Paul Murphy photographs of many more coins were made available for further study, the result of which is presented here. The research is based on about 360 coins from the collections of Mr. Satya Bhupatiraju, Mr. Lance Dane, Mr. J.P. Goenka, Mr. Shinji Hirano, Mr. Jan Lingen, Mr. Paul Murphy, Dr. Pankaj Tandon, Dr. Dilip Rajgor, Mr. Robert Tye, The British Museum and myself. I wish to thank these collectors and the Trustees of the British Museum for their support. Without their generous co-operation, this work would not have been realised.

I had the benefit of previous studies by Dr. Michael Mitchiner (1976), Dr. Dilip Rajgor (1996, 2001) and Mr. Robert Tye (1984). Through the kind support of Mr. Joe Cribb and Dr. Shailandra Bhandare I had the opportunity to study approximately 60 Saurashtran coins in the British Museum. It was exciting to actually handle the coins that Codrington and Elliot had acquired over a century ago and which originally started the discussion of this type.

The catalogue is not as comprehensive as I wished it to be. Some major collections, mainly in India were not yet accessible for this research. My experience is that each time a new collection is researched new types and variations are found. So it is expected that future research will reveal many more. Supplements will then be provided in future AHATA volumes and/or on the CD rom versions.

This work briefly discusses the history of the Saurashtra Janapada and the numismatic development of the Saurashtra punch-marked coinage. The types of the main symbols and the auxiliary symbols are described and the weight standard is discussed. The peculiar and consistent re-strike practice is dealt with and finally the different views of Mitchiner, Rajgor and Tye on the dating of the coinage are reviewed. A modified dating is proposed in this work. A few words now on the way the illustrations in the catalogue were made.

The coins are small (ca 1-2 cm) and as a result of re-striking the images are mostly mutilated or only partly visible. Many details are hardly discernable even with a 8x magnifying glass. All photographs (black and white) of the 360 odd coins (obverse and nearly always the reverse) were enhanced with Photoshop 7, by manipulating contrast and brightness and by sharpening the images. Enlargements up to 20x of the small coins produced many unexpected details. Even on enhanced photographs the fine details are difficult to see, therefore eye copies were made of nearly all coins in the catalogue. The drawings of complicated images were made by the author by tracing a printed enlarged scan of the coin on tracing paper. The drawing was subsequently scanned and printed at the desired size. For better visibility the enhanced photographs and the eye copies are shown in the catalogue at approximately 200% with variations up and down.

Book Two Surasena

Book Two covers the coinage of the Surasena Janapada and presents one or more examples o each type as seen by the author.

Surasena coinage is scarce and scientific information is mainly derived from a small number of hoards from the Mathura region. The attribution of the coins to Surasena was first made by Dr. P. L. Gupta as late as 1989, based on hoard evidence.

The Surasena coinage has a distinct pattern that is easy to identify. Always a single punch is used with a lion-type animal, which is nearly always accompanied by a fish. The image seem to be unique to Surasena.

Surasena coins are small and the image is always partly off flan. Therefore several examples per type are presented. A photograph of each coin and an eye copy is provided. The coin images, taken from photographs have been electronically enhanced. All coin images and drawings are enlarged to about 200%. All drawings are made by the author.

This analysis of the Surasena coinage was made possible by the support of Mr. Kamalesh Kumar Maheshwari and Mr. Amiteshwar Jha of the IIRNS. Thanks to their co-operation the author had access to the photographs of the Maheshwari collection and to the photographic library of the IIRNS, collectively covering more than 1000 coins. They are probably from two hoards of unknown provenance. A number of other collectors provided images of their Surasena coins.

Information on the history of Surasena and of the geographical situation of the Janapada is very limited. Most authors repeat basic information and refer to ancient literature. Ancient inscriptions with information on Surasena have not come to the knowledge of this author. Study of the coins of the Maheshwari hoard and the IIRNS photographs indicate a relation between Surasena and the Panchala Janapada. About 16% of the coins in these hoards have been re-struck on a Panchala coins.

The author has placed forward a hypothesis for the dating of Surasena coinage.

Research of the coinage of the Ancient Indian States of Saurashtra and Surasena has been, to put it mildly, piecemeal. Although the coins of these States are scarce, but not rare and are found in many collections, the analysis of the coinage has been scattered. There has been no established numismatic classification of these coinages until now.

Anne van't Haaff joined the Ahata team in 1997 and at my request started the work on the Saurashtra and Surasena series. Ahata project members and fellow collectors from around the world provided material for Anne to work on.

Creating a numismatic classification is never easy. To do so for the two Janapadas is complicated because of the limited availability of information on the history and economic circumstances in these ancient States. Further the absence of inscriptions on the coins does not assist.

The image on the Saurashtra and Surasena coinage is created with one punch, which has one or two main symbols and nearly always a number of auxiliary symbols in a large variety of combinations. The Saurashtra coinage is extra complicated by the practice of frequent re-striking, resulting in a jumble of symbols. This made the creation of a classification system that can accommodate future discoveries rather complex.

Anne's work is highly commendable not only for the approach he has taken to the classification system but also for the sound numismatic background provided by the reasoning he has given.

I am sure this work will be a "well-thumbed" standard reference work on the Ancient States of Saurashtra and Surasena of India. This book is highly recommended to all who study Indology whether from a numismatic, historical or symbological point of view.