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3 Symbols on Obverse side & 1 Symbol in Reverse Side
It would be a jewel to be adding this coin to your collection,
COIN is punched with various Symbol of Marks, which called as a PUNCH, So it’s called it by name of Punch Marked Coins
Minted by Mauryan Rulers. The most striking feature of these punch-marked coins is presence of 3 deity, struck from single punch. It is very rare to see any human figure or deities on punch-marked coins. Shown below is another coin minted by Mauryan emperor, which shows sun, the symbol of Mauryan.
Chandragupta Maurya (321-297 BC)
He was an adventurer rather than a king. Like Alexander, he began with almost no army whatsoever; with this army he seized the region of Magadha just south of the lower Ganges and then steadily conquered the whole of the Ganges basin. Chandragupta Maurya had started his empire. When Alexander the Great departed from Gandhara, a power vacuum was left in western India which Maurya took advantage of. Marching westward, he quickly conquered the whole of the Indus Valley, and eventually gained Gandhara and Arachosia (the mountainous region west of the Indus) after defeating the Greek rulers of Persia and Bactria, the Seleucids.
Very little is known about Chandragupta's youth. Much of what is known about his youth is gathered from later classical Sanskrit literature, as well as classical Greek and Latin sources which refer to Chandragupta by the names "Sandracottos" or "Andracottus". He was paragon for next rulers.
According to traditional accounts, Chanakya, a teacher at Takshila University at the time of Alexander's invasion, found the boy Chandragupta from the Magadha kingdom in eastern India. As the story goes, Chandragupta was playing as a king with his friends and was giving justice to another boy playing criminal. Chanakya saw this and was impressed with Chandragupta's sense of justice. Chanakya asked his mother for him and then gave him education in Takshila. It is also believed that Chandragupta's lineage was born of a maid (dasi) of the King. His mother's name was "Mura", hence the name of his dynasty was later known as Maurya.
Plutarch reports that he met with Alexander the Great, probably around Takshila in the northwest, and that he viewed the ruling Nanda Empire in a negative light:
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"Androcottus, when he was a stripling, saw Alexander himself, and we are told that he often said in later times that Alexander narrowly missed making himself master of the country, since its king was hated and despised on account of his baseness and low birth."
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—Plutarch, Parallel Lives: Life of Alexander 62.9
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According to this tradition, the encounter would have happened around 326 BCE, suggesting a birth date for Chandragupta around 340 BCE.
Junianus Justinus (Justin) describes the humble origins of Chandragupta, and explains how he later led a popular uprising against the Nanda king:
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"He was of humble origin, but was pushing to acquiring the throne by the superior power of the mind. When after having offended the king of Nanda by his insolence, he was condemned to death by the king, he was saved by the speed of his own feet... He gathered bandits and invited Indians to a change of rule."
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—Junianus Justinus, Historiarum Philippicarum libri XLIV, XV.4.15
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At the time of Alexander's invasion, Chanakya was a teacher at Taxila University. The king of Taxila and Gandhara, Ambhi (also known as Taxiles), made a treaty with Alexander and did not fight against him. Chanakya saw the foreign invasion against the Indian culture and sought help from other kings to unite and fight Alexander. Porus (Parvateshwar), a king of Punjab, was the only local king who was able to challenge Alexander at the Battle of the Hydaspes River, but was defeated.
Chanakya then went to Magadha further east to seek the help of Dhana Nanda, who ruled a vast Nanda Empire which extended from Bihar and Bengal in the east to eastern Punjab in the west, but he denied any such help. After this incident, Chanakya began sowing the seeds of building an empire that can protect Indian territories from foreign invasion into his disciple Chandragupta.
SIZE:-16.79 x 14.08 MM
Weight:-2.6Gm
Items over 100 years old cannot be taken out of India without the permission of the Director General, Archaeological Survey of India, Janpath, New Delhi 110 011 (India).
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