Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c10.3.2

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.