1/4 Karshapana

The karshapana system predates the Mauryan dynasty itself — these punch-marked coins circulated across the Indian subcontinent from at least the 5th century BC, and the Mauryas inherited and standardized a monetary tradition already generations old. Chandragupta Maurya's administration codified weight standards through the Arthashastra, Kautilya's treatise on statecraft, which specifies acceptable tolerances for silver punchmarks with a precision that suggests active enforcement rather than aspiration.

Authentication is genuinely difficult. The long production window and the absence of regnal dating mean most specimens cannot be assigned to a specific ruler or even century within the dynasty.