Towns, trade and coins

Towns grew along routes: on rivers, along land routes, and on the coasts. Examples: Pataliputra, Ujjayini, Puhar and Mathura.

Archaeologists find in them fine pottery called Northern Black Polished Ware, and ornaments, tools, weapons and figurines made of many materials: gold, silver, copper, bronze, ivory, glass, shell and terracotta. Votive inscriptions (recording gifts to religious places) mention the crafts of town dwellers: washing folk, weavers, scribes, carpenters, potters, goldsmiths, blacksmiths.

Craftsmen and merchants formed guilds, or shrenis. A guild procured raw materials, regulated production, and marketed the finished goods.

Trade stretched far: to Central Asia, Africa, West Asia, Southeast Asia, China, and the Roman Empire, which bought Indian pepper and fine textiles.

Coins made trade easier:

• punch-marked coins of silver and copper, the earliest;
• Indo-Greek coins, the first to carry the names and images of rulers;
• gold coins of the Kushanas and, later, the Guptas;
• hoards of Roman coins in south India;
• copper coins of the Yaudheyas, a tribal republic.

Routes made towns; coins eased trade.