Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c7.18

c7.18

But I can very well imagine some sense of doubt crossing your mind. I have no doubt said that Pāṇini flourished about 550 B.C. Prof. Goldstücker and Sir Ramkrishna Bhandarkar would place him even earlier. But as I have told you in my last lecture, this view is not shared by the European scholars in general. The argument about the antiquity of Indian coinage, which may be based upon the study of Pāṇini’s Sūtras as I have done just now, will, I am afraid, not carry conviction to them, as they drag Pāṇini down to 350 B.C. We must, therefore, base our argument on that section of Indian literature, about the early date of which there is a general consensus of opinion among European scholars. And what other works can present themselves to our mind in this connection than the Jātakas or Buddha’s Birth Stories which form an important part of Buddhist literature? The Jātaka stories may not perhaps constitute the earliest class of this literature, but certain it is that they represent a social and political condition prior to the rise of Buddhism and belonging to the sixth or even seventh century B.C. This is the opinion not of Indian antiquarians but of European scholars, such as Bühler and Prof. Rhys Davids.¹ Let us, therefore, see what the Jātaka tales teach us on this point, i.e. whether they speak of any class or classes of coins which were current in India at the early period.