EVERYONE should know aboutAshoka. Children should be taught

about him in school because he was aspecial person whose example could stillinspire the world today. The coins thatwere issued when he was the emperorof India in the 3rd century BC still existand are available to coin collectors. Theyare a tangible connection to people wholived in that amazing period in worldhistory. According to H. G. Wells in TheOutline of History, “Amidst the tens ofthousands of monarchs that crowd thecolumns of history, their majesties andgraciousnesses and serenities and royalhighnesses and the like, the name ofAshoka shines, and shines, almost alone,a star.” Sadly few Australians have everheard of him.

Let’s begin by briefly reviewing thehistory of India before Ashoka becamethe emperor in about 268 BC. Unfortu-nately there is a lack of reliable historicalsources for the early history of India andit makes the work of historians partic-ularly difficult. Even the dates for thelifetime of Siddhartha Gautama havenot been agreed upon. He founded Bud-dhism and is known as the Buddha (En-lightened One) but the date of his death

varies from 486 BC (the traditional datebased on the ancient Singhalese chron-icles) to about 400 BC. It seems that theIndians were just not interested in his-tory in the way that the ancient Greeksand Romans were. As Gandhi said in1924, “Our Hindu ancestors solved thequestion for us by ignoring history as itis understood today and by building onslight events their philosophical struc-ture.” Probably this lack of interest in the

ASHOKAEmperor of Indiaby Peter E. Lewis

IIllustrated at left and right above: obverse of a modern Indian coin.

Figure 2 – Map of Ashoka’s edicts. The Buddha was born in Lumbini which is now in Nepal. Dhauliand Jaugada were in Kalinga. (Wikimedia Commons)

Figure 1 – Silver decadrachm minted at Baby-lon in 327 BC. On the obverse Alexander on ahorse fights Poros and a mahout on an ele-phant. On the reverse Zeus (or Alexander dei-fied) holds a thunderbolt. The coin sold in 2012for US$300,000. (The New York Sale, AuctionXXVII, Lot 304).

history of the centuries following thedeath of the Buddha was because Indiabecame largely Buddhist and it was notuntil the medieval period that the ancientVedic religion (the basis of modern Hin-duism) was revived by the Brahminpriests. Today Hinduism is the mainreligion of India and Buddhists are verymuch in the minority, but Buddhismflourishes in neighbouring countriessuch as Sri Lanka, Tibet, Myanmar andThailand. Historical events come into focus in

326 BC when Alexander the Great in-vaded India. Having conquered thePersian Empire he and his army movedon into what is now northern Pakistan.

He was opposed by a local ruler calledPoros who had a large army includingwar elephants. A great battle occurred onthe plain of the Indus River. Because ofhis fighting experience and clever tacticsAlexander won the battle. A scene fromthe battle is shown on a magnificent sil-ver coin minted at Babylon. It showsAlexander on his horse, “Bucephalos”,attacking Poros who is riding an elephantwith a mahout. (Figure 1) AlthoughAlexander wanted to advance to the easthis soldiers refused to go any further andhe never entered what is today modernIndia. He returned to Babylon where hedied in 323 BC. Before Alexander’s invasion there were

a number of small kingdoms in the valleyof the Ganges River in what is now north-ern India, and some of them issued coins.One of these kingdoms, Magadha (mod-ern Bihar) was ruled by the Nandadynasty, and it began to conquer theothers and create an empire. The capitalof Magadha was Pataliputra (modernPatna). In 321 BC the Nanda throne wasusurped by Chandragupta Maurya, whofounded the Mauryan dynasty. He exten-ded the empire and made a treaty withthe Greeks so that he controlled much ofAfghanistan. His son, Bindusara (297-272 BC) extended the Mauryan Empireto the south so that when he was suc-ceeded by his son, Ashoka (his namemeans “without sorrow”) only the south-ern tip of India and the state of Kalinga(modern Orissa) were unconquered. Ashoka was as bloodthirsty as his pre-

decessors and embarked on a cruel cam-paign to conquer Kalinga. There wasfierce fighting and thousands were killed.Then an amazing thing happened:Ashoka was overcome with remorse. Hewas sorry for all the suffering that hehad caused and embraced Buddhismwith its principle of non-violence. Hepromoted the Dharma, the Moral Lawor ethical teaching of the Buddha, andhe ordered many social reforms, such asproviding hospitals and wells. He sentBuddhist missionaries to countries out-

side India to establish Buddhism in otherAsian countries. Although a Buddhisthimself he advocated tolerance and re-spect for every religion. He wrote all thison pillars and rocks in various places inthe empire. (Figure 2 – map) Can youimagine Constantine or Napoleon say-ing they were sorry for all the sufferingthey had caused? Ashoka is surely a

Figure 3 – The lion capital when it was foundby archaeologists at Sarnath. (WikimediaCommons)

Figure 4 – The lion capital is now housed in the Sarnath Museum, which was built to house thethousands of artefacts found at the site. (Permission to use this photo was kindly granted by theDirector General, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi, India.)

Figure 5 – Stone relief at Sanchi showing a pillarwith a wheel on top. (Wikimedia Commons)

Figure 6 – Flag of India. (Wikimedia Commons)

Figure 7 – Nickel rupee of the Republic of Indiaissued in 1950. This was the first issue of coinsby the independent nation. (Author’s collection)

person who should be remembered withgreat respect. Many of his pillar and rock edicts can

still be seen. On the top of some pillarsthere was a wheel (the symbol ofDharma) or a lion (perhaps representingthe roar of the Buddha). On some therewere four lions roaring in the cardinalpoints of the compass. In 1904 archae-ologists were excavating at Sarnath,

where the Buddha began teaching hisfollowers. It is 200 kilometres west ofPatna. They uncovered a broken pillarand nearby was an Ashokan lion capital.(Figures 3 and 4) Only fragments werefound of the wheel that the lions sup-ported, but a similar pillar with a wheelis shown in a stone relief at Sanchi,which is in the Indian state of MadhyaPradesh. (Figure 5) In 1947 when Pan-dit Nehru, a secularist, became the firstprime-minister of the independent nationof India he chose the wheel that is carvedin the stone below the four lions to be inthe centre of the nation’s flag (Figure 6),and for the national emblem he chose thefour-lions capital as it was excavated atSarnath except for the large lotus base.Ever since, this emblem has appeared onthe coins (Figure 7) and banknotes (Fig-ure 8) of India. Today it is considered tosymbolize the new, secular India, freeof specific religious affiliation and gov-

erned in righteousness by the rule oflaw. Two recent books have greatly in-

creased knowledge of Ashoka and thecoins of the Mauryan Empire, and muchof the information in this article comesfrom them.Ashoka: the Search for India’sLost Emperor (London: 2012) by CharlesAllen is a very readable account of themodern discovery of that great man.Punchmarked Coinage of the IndianSubcontinent: Maghada-Mauryan Series(revised edition, Mumbai: 2014) by P. L.Gupta and Terry Hardaker includes acomprehensive catalogue and is essen-tial for serious collectors of these coins.Dr Gupta died in 2001 but his name wasretained for the revised edition. It is unknown when coins were first

produced in India but it was probably inthe 6th century BC. They were pieces ofsilver of regular weight and stamped witha number of punches each bearing a dif-

Figure 8a – Front of an Indian banknote showing the national emblem on the right. Also the em-blem is faintly visible as the watermark in the white space. (Author’s collection)

Figure 8b – Back of an Indian banknote. The national emblem is faintly visible as the watermarkin the white space. (Author’s collection)

Figure 9 – Six-armed symbol.

Figure 11 – Three-man symbol.Figure 10 – Sun symbol.

Figure 12 – Symbol consisting of 3 arrows on an oval on 2 lines.

Figure 13 – Coin 570 in Series VIb. The six-armsymbol is on the right. The sun symbol is inthe lower left corner. A crescent-on-three-arches symbol is in the top left corner. A geo-metric symbol (balance with pan) is at thebottom. A peacock-on-five-arches symbol is atthe top, and it is repeated on the reverse.(Image courtesy of Terry Hardaker)

Figure 14 – Coin 573 in Series VIb. The six-armsymbol is in the lower left corner. The sunsymbol is on the right border. A crescent-on-three arches symbol is in the lower right corner.There are two other symbols at the top, andanother shown boldly on the reverse. (PegasiNumismatics, Auction XXIX, Lot 237)

ferent symbol. Such coins are now knownas punch-marked coins or karshapana.This Sanskrit word probably meant acoin weighing one karsha, which wasa unit of weight. Currently hundreds ofdifferent varieties or types of these coinsare known from the Maghadan-Mau-ryan Period. Terry Hardaker divided theminto nine series (from Series 0 to SeriesVIII) on the basis of size, symbols,bankers’ marks, etc. He lists 625 differ-ent symbols, most of which are easilyrecognizable, e.g. an elephant or a tree. It is important to understand that in

the current state of knowledge it is notpossible to say which coins were issuedby which monarch. Terry Hardaker con-siders that if the chronology of eventsmost favoured by scholars is accepted,“Series Vb, VIb and VII would then fallpartly or wholly in the reigns of Bindu-sara and Asoka.” The standard weightof the coins in these series is 3.4 grams.The coins of Series Vb and VIb have 5symbols punched on the obverse, alwaysincluding the six-armed symbol (Figure9) and the sun symbol (Figure 10), andalways having a symbol on the reverse.On the coins of Series VII there are al-ways 5 symbols on the obverse and oneon the reverse, but the six-armed symboland the sun symbol have vanished, andthe first symbol is a man, three men (Fig-ure 11) or a new symbol with 3 arrows

on an oval (Figure 12). Typical coins ofSeries VIb are shown in Figures 13 and14. Usually on punch-marked coins thepunches are placed randomly on the flanoften with only parts on the flan and withsymbols overlapping. This can makeidentification of a coin a real challenge,but with care and knowing what symbolsto expect success is likely, and it is verysatisfying to be able to label a coin with anumber from Terry Hardaker’s catalogue.What each symbol means is generally

unknown. The common symbol consistingof 3 arches with a crescent on the top(Figure 15) is often said to represent astupa, and it is known that Ashoka builtstupas containing relics of the Buddhaall over his empire, but it is only guess-work to say the symbol represents astupa. Similarly the symbol consistingof three ovals with a line through them(Figure 16) is often said to be the symbolof Ashoka, but there is no evidence forthis. However, with some symbols it isfairly clear what the meaning is, forexample the ‘tree in railing’ symbol(Figure 17) is probably the Bodhi Tree

under which the Buddha received En-lightenment. It was a large pipal (peepal)tree, and a descendant of the tree stillstands in the temple complex at Bod-hgaya, which is about 100 kilometressouth of Patna. (Figure 18) Ashokagreatly revered the Bodhi Tree andbuilt a railing around it to protect it. Astone relief found at Sanchi in the 19th

century shows a chubby Ashoka faintinginto the arms of female attendantswhen he first sees the Bodhi Tree. (Fig-ure 19) He used to swoon when he wasexcited.According to Charles Allen, Pandit

Nehru put Ashoka on a par with JesusChrist as a source of inspiration in hisnon-violent struggle against the Britishrulers of India. Ashoka repenting andrenouncing violence can be an examplefor Christians today because it was inkeeping with the teaching of Jesus. TheDharma or Moral Law that Ashoka pro-claimed would have been approved byJesus. In the rock edicts of Kalinga, whereAshoka caused so much suffering, heannounces:All men are my children. What I desirefor my own children, and I desire theirwelfare and happiness both in thisworld and the next, that I desire for allmen. You do not understand to whatextent I desire this, and if some of youdo understand, you do not under-stand the full extent of my desire.

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Figure 15 – Crescent-on-three-arches symbol.

Figure 16 – Symbol consisting of a linethrough three ovals.

Figure 17 – Tree-in-railing symbol.

Figure 18 – The Mahabodhi Temple in Bod-hgaya, India. It was built by Ashoka on the siteof an earlier temple and restored by theBritish. The tree on the left is the descendantof the Bodhi Tree under which the Buddha at-tained Enlightenment. (Wikimedia Commons)

Figure 19 – Stone relief at Sanchi showing Ashokafainting into the arms of female attendants whenhe sees the Bodhi Tree. (Wikimedia Commons)

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