Deities on Ancient Indian Coins: Numismatic Evidence for Cultural and Religious Syncretism (c. Fourth Century BCE – Sixth Century CE)

Abstract

Coins are among the most durable sources for the religious and cultural history of ancient India, especially for periods in which texts and inscriptions are sparse. This paper surveys the deities that appear on coins from the punch-marked issues of the Janapadas to the gold coinage of the Guptas, with most attention to the Indo-Greek and Indo-Scythian (Saka) periods. Indo-Greek kings such as Agathocles, Demetrius I and Antimachus I struck coins showing Zeus, Poseidon, Athena and Heracles. Agathocles also issued silver drachms with Samkarshana-Balarama and Vasudeva-Krishna, and a silver coin of Hermaeus has been read by A. K. Narain as showing an elephant-headed deity, an identification that remains disputed. Indo-Scythian coinage under Maues and Azilises combines Greek types with Indian ones, including a seated figure that some scholars read as the Buddha and, under Azilises, the goddess Lakshmi. A short survey of Kushan issues leads to the Gupta gold coinage, on which Lakshmi and other Brahmanical deities predominate. The paper argues that coin types are best read as deliberate choices addressed to particular audiences, and that where an identification is uncertain the uncertainty should be reported and not resolved.