Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c10.35

c10.35

Let me, again, draw your attention to what Bṛihaspati has said about Suvarṇa and Kārshāpaṇa. As I have told you, he identifies Suvarṇa with Dīnāra which, we know, weighs 124 grains, and takes Kārshāpaṇa to be a copper coin weighing one Karsha or 146·4 grains. Let us now see what metric connection he establishes between Kārshāpaṇa and Suvarṇa. According to him, 4 Kārshāpaṇas or Aṇḍakas make 1 Dhānaka, and 12 Dhānakas 1 Suvarṇa or Dīnāra. The same table is given by Kātyāyana also. The ratio of gold to copper in the early mediæval period, that is, when Bṛihaspati and Kātyāyana wrote, may be expressed thus: 146·4 × 4 × 12 : 124 = 56·7 : 1. And the rate of exchange between the copper Kārshāpaṇa and the gold Dīnāra was 48 : 1. The present ratio between copper and gold is something like 1000 : 1. This, no doubt, shows that copper in early times had comparatively much greater value than it possesses at present, almost at twenty times as much as now. Perhaps this calculation may not at once convince you. But let me tell you that, in the provinces where Dīnāra was current, no silver coinage was in existence, I mean, in the dominions of the Kushanas and their successors, the Guptas. From the economic point of view, such a thing would not have been possible, if copper had not been of such high value at that period as to dispense with the necessity of any silver coinage.