excerpts from chapter 2

8/6/2019 Excerpts From Chapter 2

1/4

The Da

Chap

J

n of Indian Co

Excerpts from

ter 2 of the monograph

e Francis Therattil

nage


2/4

Representation of Indian

Persepol

Gold too is produ

washed down by the riv

described [paragraph 106,

Re

pers

side

scu

[Na

elegation: relief on the wall near the eastern stairw

s. Photo: University of Chicago [cropped-out image].

ced there in vast abundance, some dug from

ers, some carried off in the mode which I

Book III - Thalia].

presentation of an Indian [Hnduya] among

ns depicted as obediently supporting on the

of the base of the statue of Darius the Great

lptured in Egypt as per his order [DSab]

close-up of the scripture in Hieroglyph.

ional Archeological Museum, Tehran, Iran]

Photo: Livius Picture Archive Susa.htm

h

nd

u

ya

foreign land

y at Apadana,

the earth, some

have but now


3/4

By about 520 BC,

Darius] the

[kshyathaiya - king] of

under his dominion.

Herodotus records

discoverer. Wishing to kn

produces crocodiles] empt

truthfulness he could rely,They started from the city

the stream in an easterly

voyage of thirty months,

spoke above, sent the Pho

Darius conquered the Ind

except the eastern portio

[paragraph 44, Book IV -

He started issuing

BC], evident from the sma

as date, the twenty-second

impressions of two Darics

and Archaic Greek Coinag

[Drayavaush- He Who Holds F

[Hakshmanaishaiya - Achaemenid]

[Prs - Persia], brought [

the event: Of the greater part of Asia

ow where the Indus [which is the only rive

ied itself into the sea, he sent a number of

and among them Scylax of Caryanda, to sailof Caspatyrus, in the region called Pactyica,

direction to the sea. Here they turned westw

eached the place from which the Egyptian k

nicians to sail round Libya. After this voyage

ians, and made use of the sea in those parts.

, has been found to be similarly circumstanc

elpomene].

old coins by the last decade of the sixth centu

ll clay tablet, from the Persepolis fortification

regnal year of Darius, on the reverse of whic

[pages 8 -12, Evidence from Persepolis for D, M. C. Root, NC, 1988].

Dar

[in his

behin

Relief

north

Apada

Natio

Archa

Museu

irm the Good -

idu Sindhu]

arius was the

r save one that

en, on whose

down the river.nd sailed down

ard, and after a

ing, of whom I

was completed,

. Thus all Asia,

ed with Libya

y BC [509 - 500

rchive, bearing

there are clear

ating of Persian

ius the Great

throne]

him Xerxes I

from the

rn stairs of the

na; now at

al

eological

m, Tehran, Iran.


4/4

Satraps had no right to mint gold coins of their own and ever since the

introduction of Daric, it was the only gold coin in tender across the entire Persian

Empire. So there is hardly any question of a gold coin of India during that period. An

instance recorded in Histories seems to be worth mentioning in this context:

Darius had refined gold to the last perfection of purity in order to have coins

struck of it: Aryandes, in his Egyptian government, did the very same with silver, so that

to this day there is no such pure silver anywhere as the Aryandic. Darius, when this

came to his ears, brought another charge, a charge of rebellion, against Aryandes, and puthim to death [paragraph 166, Book IV - Melpomene].

[DAREIOS in Greek]

Scene from the Darius Vase, produced

between 340 and 320 BC which was

discovered in 1851 near Canosa di

Puglia and now on display at the Museo

Archaeologico Nazionale, Naples(H3253).

excerpts from chapter 2

Documents