The Avanti janapada, with Ujjain as its capital, had been a major punch-marked silver currency zone for centuries before copper issues of this type began circulating. By the 2nd century BC, the regional political order was fragmenting under Shungan pressure from the east, and copper karshapanas of local issue increasingly substituted for the silver coinage that had defined earlier Mauryan-era commerce in the region. Ujjain's position on the Tropic of Cancer made it the site of one of India's most important astronomical observatories — a city of genuine administrative weight, not a provincial backwater.
The Avanti janapada, with Ujjain as its capital, had been a major punch-marked silver currency zone for centuries before copper issues of this type began circulating. By the 2nd century BC, the regional political order was fragmenting under Shungan pressure from the east, and copper karshapanas of local issue increasingly substituted for the silver coinage that had defined earlier Mauryan-era commerce in the region. Ujjain's position on the Tropic of Cancer made it the site of one of India's most important astronomical observatories — a city of genuine administrative weight, not a provincial backwater.