A History of India Through Coins by Dr Sanjay Garg on Saturday, January 1, 2022, 5:30 PM

The history of a nation is reconstructed through the cultural vestiges of its past. These include built heritage, archaeological excavations, archival records, oral traditions, epigraphic evidence and numismatic pieces, as well as other artefacts, paintings etc. Among these, coins provide an authentic and unbiased evidence of the past. Produced for mass consumption as the currency of their age, once these small metallic pieces become non-current, they provide corroborative or, at times, solitary evidence of an event of the past. The metal or alloy used in the manufacture of these coins also provides evidence of the scientific development during that particular period.

There are many aspects of our heritage, such as development of iconography, language and script; or religious beliefs as well as reign and extent of a particular ruler, that can be authoritatively gleaned from the study of rich repertoire Indian coins. The Talk would focus on some prominent landmarks of Indian history as revealed through contemporary coins. About The Speaker

Dr Sanjay Garg is a numismatist and economic historian of international repute. He completed his Ph.D. in History, at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; M.A. in History from the St. John’s College, Agra University, Agra; and Post-Graduate Diploma in Archival Studies at the National Archives of India, New Delhi. He is proficient in Hindi, English, Urdu, French and Persian. He has extensive research experience in history of South Asia, with specialization on economic and monetary history, currency and coinage, architecture and archival studies. His research findings have been widely published in print and multimedia. Dr. Garg has served the National Archives of India, New Delhi in various capacities including as Deputy Director of Archives. He has been in charge of Research at the SAARC Cultural Centre, in Colombo and was the Director of the Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre, at Nur-Sultan (Astana), Kazakhastan. At present he is the Officer on Special Duty, Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav Secretariat, Ministry of Culture, Government of India, New Delhi.