BIBLIOGRAPHY.--E. J. Rapson, _Indian Coins_ (Strassburg, 1897); Sir A. Cunningham, _Coins of Ancient India_ (London, 1891), _Coins of Mediaeval India_ (1894); British Museum Catalogue of Indian Coins, _Greek and Scythic Kings_ (1886), _Andhras and Western Ksatrapas_ (1908), _Sultans of Delhi_ (1885), _Muhammadan States_ (1885), _Moghul Emperors_ (1891); Catalogue of Coins in the Indian Museum, vol. i. by V. A. Smith (Oxford, 1906), vols. ii. and iii. (1907, 1908) by H. Nelson Wright; E. H. Walsh, _The Coins of Nepal_ (_Journ. of Roy. Asiat. Society_, 1907); J. Allan, _Coinage of Assam_ (_Num. Chron._, 1908). IV.--THE COINAGES OF THE FAR EAST _China._--The earliest coins of China, like those of Western Asia, date from the seventh century B.C.: these are small bronze spades and knives, copies of the actual spades, knives, or rather billhooks, and other small articles of husbandry which had previously been used for barter. The knives are about seven inches long and bear an inscription giving the weight or value and the name of the town or confederacy which issued it; a modified form of the spade money, called the _pu_ (flattened) money, circulated widely in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. (Plate VIII. 1, a _pu_ coin of the town of Lu-Yang). Round money had been made as early as the fourth century B.C., but it was not till 221 B.C. that the great reformer Shih Huang Ti (221-210 B.C.), the "First Emperor," definitely superseded all previous currencies by round coins. His coins were pieces of half an ounce (_pan-liang_), and were continued by the Han dynasty (Plate VIII. 6, a _pan-liang_ of the Empress Kao Hou, 187-179 B.C.). This coinage gradually became so debased and counterfeited that in 118 B.C. the Emperor Wu Ti (122-117 B.C.) issued a new bronze coinage of five-_chu_ pieces (Plate VIII. 2); the five-_chu_ piece remained the standard coin for the next eight centuries. The attempted monetary reforms of the usurper Wang Mang (9-22 A.D.) may be mentioned here. In addition to reviving a modified _pu_ and knife money (Plate VIII. 4), he instituted a round coinage (_ho tsiuen_, Plate VIII. 3), but after his assassination and the restoration of the Han dynasty the five-_chu_ piece was restored. The history of Chinese currency is henceforth a continual struggle between the government and the counterfeiter. On one occasion at least, the government sought to get rid of the forgers by making the most skilled of them mint officials.