of officials were first added to, and afterwards substituted for, the private or communal marks. Be that as it may, we see here in the very earliest coinage the commencement of that fascination which the square coin seems to have exercised upon Indian moneyers of all periods; for it continually reappears, in the coins of the Muhammadan kingdoms of Mālwā and Kashmīr for example, in some beautiful gold and silver issues of the Mughals, Akbar and Jahāngīr, and even in the nineteenth century in copper pieces struck by the Bahāwalpūr State in the Panjāb. Most writers agree, as indeed their shape, form, and weight suggest, that the “punch-marked” coins are indigenous in origin, and owe nothing to any foreign influence. In what part of India they originated we do not know: present evidence and the little knowledge we possess of the state of India in those times indicate some territory in the north. As to the period during which they were in active circulation we are not left so completely at the mercy of conjecture. Finds and excavations tell us something: contemporary writers, Indian and foreign, drop us hints. Sir John Marshall records, during the recent excavations round Taxila, the find of 160 “punch-marked” coins of debased silver, with a coin in fine condition of Diodotos of Bactria (circ. 245 B.C.).[5] Then there is the interesting statement of the usually trustworthy Latin writer, Quintus Curtius, that Omphis (Āmbhi) presented “Signati argenti LXXX talenta”—“80 talents of stamped silver”—to Alexander at Taxila. These and similar pieces of evidence show us that “punch-marked” coins were well established in Northern India during the fourth and third centuries B.C., when the great Maurya Empire was at the height of its power. The large quantities continually being unearthed suggest a long period of circulation, so that in their earliest forms “punch-marked” coins may go back to the sixth century, and may have remained current in some districts of the north as late as the second century B.C. At some period, perhaps during the campaigns of the great Chandragupta and the settlement of the Empire under his grandson Aśoka, these coins became the established currency of the whole Indian peninsula, and in the southern districts, at least, they must have remained in circulation for three, perhaps four, centuries longer than in the north, for in Coimbatore district “punch-marked” coins have been found along with a _denarius_ of the Roman Emperor Augustus; and some of the earliest individualistic coinages of the south, which apparently emerge at a much later period, the so-called “padma-ṭaṅkas,” for instance, seem to be the immediate successors of these “punch-marked” coins. [2] Cf. _I.M.C._, p. 136, Nos. 1, 2, 3 (ingots), Nos. 4, 5, 6 (bars). [3] By Dr. Spooner, Dr. Bhandarkar, and E. H. Walsh. Cf. _Journal of the Bihār and Orissa Research Society_, 1919, pp. 16-72, 463-94.