Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c10.3

Language: English

c10.3.1

The earliest composition of the Vedic period is, as you all know, represented by the hymns of the Rig-Veda. And in my second lecture I had occasion to tell you that in the Rigvedic period itself there were two types of metallic currency, prevalent side by side. One of them was known as *hiranya-piṇḍa* or buttons of gold, and the other *nishka* which were actually gold coins. If at the beginning of the Vedic period stamped money was current side by side with unstamped money, it is clear that the metallic currency of India must have had an earlier origin, *i.e.* an origin earlier than the time of even the Rig-Veda. And if such is the case with the metallic coinage of this country, the age when any kind of currency first originated in India must be pushed back still earlier. Hence before we actually begin the history of coinage in ancient India, it seems desirable to say a few words, or rather to make a few guesses, in regard to the condition of currency that may have prevailed in this country before the advent of the Aryans. I can quite imagine at this stage some doubt crossing the mind of most of you here as to how I could even surmise the state of currency in pre-Vedic India. But what Professor Ridgeway has done in regard to the pre-historic or proto-historic currency of Greece can also be attempted on a modest scale in regard to India provided we follow his method which is typically the anthropological method.

c10.3.2

It is possible to study the various kinds of currency in use amongst the savage tribes of various stages of civilisation and compare them to the similar ones that were prevalent in India, whether in the proto-historic or even the historic period. If you, for instance, concentrate your attention on the Sūtras of Pāṇini, especially those which are comprised in the sections called *tena krītam* and *tad-arhati*, it cannot fail to make a very interesting economic history of India. You will find that not only coins of different types and metals were current in Pāṇini’s time, but that many transactions used to take place with the help of many media of exchange. Three instances will suffice here. The first is Sūtra V. 1. 27, which shows that objects could sometimes be purchased with *vasana* or “pieces of cloth of definite value,” a practice which is still followed in some parts of India, notably Rājputānā. Nay, if you turn to Sūtra V. 1. 19, you will find that the people of India in Pāṇini’s time sometimes employed even a *go-puchchha* or bovine tail as a circulating medium. A similar practice, I am told, is prevalent to this day in Nepāl, where the tail of a yak, a species of ox, which is used as *chaurie*, is exchanged for other commodities. But whether this yak-tail is actually denoted by Pāṇini's *go-puchchha* is more than doubtful, because the proper Sanskrit word for the former is *chamara* which occurs also in early works such as the Mahābhārata.

c10.3.3

And *go-puchchha*, I am afraid, has to be understood in the primary sense of a cow's tail, howsoever polluting and revolting such a custom may now appear to us. There are, again, at least three Sūtras in Pāṇini's *Aṣṭādhyāyī*, which speak of *kamsa*, *śūrpa* and *khārī* in connection with purchase of commodities. But as these are clearly measures of capacity, the only inference possible is that such commodities were bought by means of these measures and most probably with grains which were the staple food of a province. To this day the custom of purchasing things with food-stuff, such as rice grains, is not unknown in India, especially in rural regions. Now just see what these Sūtras teach us in regard to the different classes of articles that were used for currency purposes. Of course, coins were known in Pāṇini's time, and, as some of their names again are also of metal weights, we can imagine that metals by weight were also used as currency as they no doubt were in Burma till the middle of the nineteenth century. But if it is supposed that because some sort of metallic currency or another was prevalent in Pāṇini's time, there were no media of exchange in use such as we find in more or less uncivilised tribes of the modern day, I am afraid this supposition cannot be regarded as well-founded. For these media of exchange not only were prevalent in the time of Pāṇini, but have survived to this day as I have just told you.

c10.3.4

And it is not very difficult to imagine what different measures of value came into existence in ancient India with what different stages of civilisation.