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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
ECONOMIC CONDITION
Malwā, Gujarāt and Mārvāḍ also, where no such foreign currency is likely to have been in circulation. The Lēkhapaddhati gives the coin-name as pāraupatha or pārupathaka, which seems to connect it with some locality as patha or pathaka was a territorial sub-division[1] From the Purātanaprabbandhasaṅgraha we learn that pōruthaka drammas were in circulation in the kingdom of Jālor near Bhinmāl. It has, therefore, been suggested that they may have received this name from that place just as elsewhere drammas of Bhillamāla are referred to.[2] As for the value of a pōrutha dramma the Purātanaprabandhasaṅgraha tells us that it was equivalent to 8 ordinary drammas. This high value of these drammas may have been due to the purity of their silver rather than to their size or weight. .. As stated above, both the ordinary and the pōrutha drammas were in circulation in North Koṅkaṇ. It is noteworthy in this connection that a pot found in North Koṅkaṇ many years ago contained both the Gadhiyā and Kshatrapa coins.[3] Of these, the Gadhiyā coins were probably of Chhittarāja or some other ruler of the family, and the Kshatrapa coins were the so called porutha drammas. They were so called because they were believed to have been struck by Pārthian (actually Śaka) kings.
.. In the excavations at Brahmapurī, a suburb of Kolhāpur on the bank of the Pañchagaṅgā, two small gold coins were found.[4] They are round in Shape and have on the obverse a trident with a handle, the forks of which enclose the sun and the moon, and on the reverse the figure of a standing Garuḍa, with legs bent, carrying a flying banner in the left hand and a serpent in the right. Their weight is 22.5 grains. As the Śilāhāras were ruling at Kolhāpur and had the Garuda for their ensign, these coins apparently belong to them. It is noteworthy that the seal of the Miraj plates of Mārasiṁha shows a similar trident. As the coins are uninscribed, the Śilāhāra king who struck them cannot be identified.
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The coins mentioned in the Silahara inscriptions from the Kolhapur region are panam and bīsige.[5] The panam or phanam was a tiny coin of gold, weighing five or six grains. Bīsige probably represents Sanskrit viṁśōpaka or Marāṭhī visovā and may have been in value one
twentieth of the phanam.
[1] Lekhapaddhati, p. 43.
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