or a thousand nishkas). Panini uses the term rūpa to mean a piece of precious metal (typically silver) used as a coin, and a rūpya to mean a stamped piece of metal, a coin in the modern sense. The term rūpya continues into the modern usage as the rupee. Ratti based measurement is the oldest measurement system in the Indian subcontinent. The smallest weight in the Indus Valley civilization was equal to 8 rattis and were the bases for the weight standards for the first Indian coins in the seventh century BC. Ratti and is still used in India as Jewellers weight. Theory of West Asian influences Scholars remain divided over the origins of Indian punch-marked coinage (PMC). What is known, however, is that the earliest extant evidence, of silver currency, are bent silver bars, in the North West of the sub-continent, and consistent with those found in Iran, from the 7th century BCE Nush-i-jan hoard, and the 4th Century BCE, Chaman Huzuri (Kabul) hoard. Extant exidence of the earliest Metal currency in the South and East of India is later than the North West, and coeval with the Northern Black Polished Ware culture, minted before the Maurya Empire (322–185 BCE), with radio carbon dating indicating post 5th century BCE dates. According to some scholars minted coins spread to the Indo-Gangetic Plain from West Asia. According to Joe Cribb (2003), a "marriage between Greek coinage and Iranian bar currency" was at the origin of Indian punch-marked coins, the earliest coins developed in India, which used minting technology derived from Greek coinage. Daniel Schlumberger also considers that punch-marked bars, similar to the many punch-marked bars found in northwestern India, initially originated in the Achaemenid Empire, rather than in the Indian heartland: The Western origins hypothesis had previously been proposed before any serious attempts were made in the study of PMC coins such as: John Allan (1936), asserted "the idea of a coinage came to India in the late fifth or early fourth century B. C. from Achaemenid territory, conjecturing that the bent bar or wheel-marked coins "were struck on a Persian standard and represented double sigloi or staters....". Arguing no evidence coinage, in India, exists before the Nanda period, with the earliest finds from: Golakpur, Paila, and Set Mahet indicating the region in which local punch-marked coins originated. James Kennedy (1898), the PMC were copied form Babylonian originals as a result