Satamana - Taxila Gandhara Janapada

The bent-bar silver currency of Gandhara — of which the satamana is the principal weight unit — predates the Achaemenid conquest of the region but circulated through it, surviving into the period when Darius I incorporated Gandhara as one of the wealthiest satrapies of the Persian empire, reportedly assessed at 170 talents of silver annually. Whether Persian administration accelerated or merely absorbed the existing punch-marked tradition remains debated. The Taxila hoard evidence suggests continuous local production rather than imperial replacement.