The Kārṣāpaṇa and the King's Share: Currency, Taxation and Fiscal Administration in the Empire of Aśoka

Adv. RAJIV AMBADAS SHINDE

doi:10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i05.89573

The Kārṣāpaṇa and the King's Share: Currency, Taxation and Fiscal Administration in the Empire of Aśoka

Author(s)	Mr. Adv. RAJIV AMBADAS SHINDE
Country	India
Abstract	Aśoka's empire rested on two fiscal instruments that the epigraphic and archaeological record allows us to see with unusual clarity: a silver punch-marked currency denominationed in kārṣāpaṇas and paṇas, and a land-based revenue system whose central levy, bali, is named by the emperor's own inscription at Lumbinī. This paper reconstructs both, using four independent evidentiary streams — Aśokan inscriptions, numismatic and archaeometallurgical analysis, the testimony of Greek ambassadors and the Greco-Roman geographers who transmitted them, and the later Indian and Sri Lankan donative inscriptions. It argues that the fiscal order of Aśoka's empire is recoverable in considerable technical detail — weight standards, denominations, alloy debasement, official hierarchies, tax exemptions, and public expenditure — entirely without recourse to the prescriptive treatise tradition, and that the most distinctive feature of the system was the use of fiscal instruments (exemption, remission, and funded public works) as instruments of dhamma. The value of the kārṣāpaṇa is examined metrologically and metallurgically, and the paper is explicit about the limits of the evidence: no Mauryan price lists survive, and the currency's "value" can be established only from weight standards and metallic content.
Keywords	King Ashoka edicts, fiscal policy, Numismatics, archaeometallurgy, Kārṣāpaṇa, trade, royal marks, taxation, fiscal geography
Field	Sociology > Archaeology / History
Published In	Volume 8, Issue 5, September-October 2026
Published On	2026-10-12
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i05.89573

View / Download PDF File

About IJFMR Fees & Payment Current Issue Publication Archive	Submit Research Paper Track Submission Status Publication Guidelines Publication Ethics Peer Review & Plagiarism	Join as a Reviewer Editors & Reviewers Reviewer Referral Program Get Reviewer Membership Certi.	Website/Journal Policies Usage Policy Content Policies Privacy Policy

Contact Us		+91-9687-828-838	editor@ijfmr.com

International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research

A Widely Indexed Open Access Peer Reviewed Multidisciplinary Bi-monthly Scholarly International Journal

The Kārṣāpaṇa and the King's Share: Currency, Taxation and Fiscal Administration in the Empire of Aśoka

Share this