1/4 Karshapana - Saurastra

The Saurashtra Peninsula maintained its own copper coinage well into the period of expanding Indo-Scythian pressure from the northwest, and these fractional pieces circulated in a region that Greek geographers knew as Syrastrene — a prosperous coastal zone whose ports fed westward trade into the Persian Gulf. Whether this issue predates or overlaps with the establishment of Western Kshatrapa authority in the region remains debated; the chronology of local autonomous issues here resists clean periodization.