History of Nandas | From Alexander 2 arrival of CGM | Update Pg-3 Wars - Page 4

Originally posted by: durgeshnandini

Thanks a lot for sharing this! 

I wanted to sit back and read with patience, not just understanding but evaluating the treasure trove of information that your blogs invariably are. The first two mighty Emperors mentioned in the blog article, Bimbisara and Ajatshatru, are the only names I was aware of - this post only surprised one to think the heights of fortunes to which our country had risen owing to the huge wealth assembled by the various rulers. 

Bimbisara and Ajatashatru are very famous ancient rulers. They are mentioned in Buddhist accounts too. Bimbisara is regarded as the first among the Chakravartins of ancient India. Since they were not required in present discussion, hence i did not write in detail.

India had presence of gold in mines in ancient era. This is mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus who was writing in 5th century BCE. I mentioned him in the blog post too. He says, the sandy part of North West India was rich in gold dust.

Historians have identified this region as present day Rajasthan. In medieval times too, gold was taken out from this area. He says, Indians used "giant sized ants who were bigger than foxes but smaller than dogs" to dig out gold.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/25/world/himalayas-offer-clue-to-legend-of-gold-digging-ants.html

He was referring to ancient type of dogs who were big enough, bigger than foxes, and also used in wars! In the update on page 3, i mentioned about dogs being used in wars, from a Greek testimony!

A special mention of the numerous terracotta artefacts included in this article, it must be painstaking to figure out the people and events - I could hardly make out the human forms in a few.

Yes, it is a tough job to identify the depictions in these sculptures, but once you do it regularly, it is easy to do, in most cases. There are dedicated professionals who work with sculptures.


One question, most of these terracotta plaques have holes pierced into them, is there any special reason for that? Or is it so that they can be hung up on the walls like paintings? 

Yes, they were hung up on the walls. Their use varied. They were used for worship, decoration, etc. And, you would be amazed to know that these are not big sculptures, they are of few centimetres in length. I have posted the pictures taken from a very close distance.

One can only imagine how the intricate detailing was fitted in such small sculptures, way back 2200 years ago.

Also the appliques and the extensive usage of burnt clay, in the making must be a descent from the Indus Valley Civilisation, which is famous for the terracotta artefacts excavated?

That time there were 2 things to be used in sculptures - Terracota and stone.

Stone was costly and was used by the rich class. The terracota served as the expression of the artistic taste of the common man of humbler class. Hence, whatever, terracota plaques which we saw in the blog post, were the mirror of the society of that period.

Indus Valley Civilization folks used well baked material for figurines. They also made statues, though rare, from soft stones, grey and yellow limestone and steatite.

Thanks for the pm.
Welcome.

Originally posted by: maheshbedant

Thank you so much 😃
As I am collecting the info regarding this particular part,you helped me a lot.

Originally posted by: najma123

I will read this one. xD Thanks for the links, bro. 

Love

Naj

Originally posted by: mandy001

Thank u so much for ds info

Originally posted by: Anokhisharma

thanq for the info 😊

Originally posted by: Kalgi22

Abhay

Thank you so much for this informative post and the collective pictures of plaque and terracotta, is really helpful to know about life style of that era. Really a great reading about Nanda dynasty. So that means this show also not that much deviated from the history. It's really interesting to know that Puranas stated Nanda as second Parasurama... The destroyer  of kshatriya. 

Thanks again. 

Originally posted by: RadhikaS0

Abhay,

Sharing something about the confluence of the Indian and Greek cultures - how Indo-Greek coins started being minted and how much the Indian culture was valued by the Greeks. 

Based on available evidence, it appears that the notion of money as coins was conceived by three different civilizations independently and almost simultaneously. Coins were introduced as a means to trade things of daily usage in Asia Minor, India and China in the 6th century BC. Most historians agree that the first coins of world were issued by Greeks living in Lydia and Ionia, located on the western coast of modern Turkey. These first coins were made in about 650 BC of Electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver. They had definite weight and were stamped with punches issued by the local authorities.

Both literary and archaeological evidence confirm that the Indians invented coinage somewhere between the 5th and 6th centuries BC. A hoard of coins discovered at Chaman Huzuri in 1933 AD contained 43 silver punch-marked coins (the earliest coins of India) mixed with Athenian coins and Achaemenid (Persian) coins. The Bhir (Taxila in modern Pakistan) hoard discovered in 1924 AD contained 1,055 punch-marked coins in very worn-out condition and two coins of Alexander in mint condition. This archaeological evidence clearly indicates that the coins were minted in India long before the 4th century BC, i.e. before the Greeks advanced towards India. 

Panini wrote his Ashtadhyayi in the 4th or 5th  century BC in which he mentioned Satamana, Nishkas, Sana, Vimastika, Karshapana and its various sub-divisions to be used in financial transactions. Thus, coins were known in ancient Indian literature from 500 BC. There is also a strong belief that silver, which was not available in Vedic India (pre 600 BC), became abundantly available by 500-600 BC. Most of the silver came from Afghanistan and Persia as a result of international trade.

The first Greek coins to be minted in India, those of Menander I and Appolodotus I bear the mention "Saviour king" (BASILEOS SOTHROS), a title with high value in the Greek world. Menander and Apollodotus may have been seen as saviours to the Greek populations residing in India. The title was also inscribed in Pali (the Kharohi script) as Tratarasa on the reverse of the coins. Most of the coins of the Greek kings in India were thus bilingual, written in Greek on the front and in Pali on the back, an unprecedented concession to another culture in the Hellenic world! 

From the reign of Apollodotus II, around 80 BC, Kharoshthi letters started to be used as mintmarks on coins in combination with Greek monograms and mintmarks. Possibly local technicians started getting involved in the minting process. Incidentally, these Indo-Greek bilingual coins were the key to decipher the Kharohi script by James Prinsep (1799 -1840).

The coinage of the Indo-Greeks remained influential for several centuries throughout the Indian subcontinent:

The Indo-Greek weight and size standard for silver drachms was adopted by the contemporary Buddhist kingdom of the Kunindas in Punjab, the first attempt by an Indian kingdom to produce coins that could compare with those of the Indo-Greeks.

In central India, the Satavahanas (2nd century BC- 2nd century AD) adopted the practice of representing their kings in profile, within circular legends.

The direct successors of the Indo-Greeks in the northwest, the Indo-Scythians and Indo-Parthians, continued displaying their kings within a legend in Greek, and on the obverse, Greek deities.

To the south, the Western Kshatrapas (1st-4th century AD) represented their kings in profile with circular legends in corrupted Greek.

The Kushans (1st-4th century AD) used the Greek language on their coinage until the first few years of the reign of Kanishka, when they adopted the Bactrian language, written with the Greek script.

The Guptas (4th-6th century AD) also showed their rulers in profile, within a legend in corrupted Greek, in the coinage of their western territories.

The latest use of the Greek script on coins corresponds to the rule of the Turkish Shahi of Kabul, around 850 AD.

The first documented coinage is deemed to start with 'Punch Marked' coins issued between the 7th-6th century BC and 1^st century AD. These coins are called 'punch-marked' coins because of their manufacturing technique. Mostly made of silver, these bear symbols, each of which was punched on the coin with a separate punch.

Issued initially by merchant Guilds and later by States, the coins represented a trade currency belonging to a period of intensive trade activity and urban development. They are broadly classified into two periods : the first period (attributed to the Janapadas) and the second period (attributed to the Imperial Mauryan period). The motifs found on these coins were mostly drawn from nature like the sun, various animal motifs, trees, hills etc. and some were geometrical symbols. as shown in above picture.

Originally posted by: SenAnu

Thank you Abhay for this post.. It gives a detailed and comprehendable idea of the dynasty.. :) 

Originally posted by: SenAnu

Thank you Abhay and the others for posting such informative articles !

It is so nice to see how these things are so interrelated :)