Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c7.20

Language: English

c7.20.1

Now, any one who carefully studies Pāṇini’s Sūtras and the Jātaka stories cannot but be impressed by the fact that both depict ancient India of practically the same period. It is not, therefore, surprising if we find the same classes of coins referred to in both. But Pāṇini’s Aṣṭādhyāyī, just because it consists of aphorisms, cannot be expected to throw much light on this subject beyond the mere mention of the denominations of coins. The case is, however, different in regard to the Buddhist Jātakas. As they portray social and economic India of the 7th century B.C., it is here that we can clearly see what part, insignificant or important, stamped metallic currency played in the manifold transactions of the people at that early period. Let us, in the first place, see whether there was any gold currency in India at that time. Of course, as India was the land of gold in those days at least, we must naturally expect some sort of gold coinage to have been then prevalent. And we certainly find that our expectations are not unfounded. For we read of at least three classes of gold coinage in the Jātaka literature. And as gold is the most precious metal of which coins can be manufactured, it is only in connection with hoards of money, munificent gifts and so forth that we find gold coins mentioned. Thus the Kuhaka Jātaka¹ gives us an amusing story of a scamp of an ascetic who goes to a village and lives in a hermitage built by a local Kuṭumbika or farmer.

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Taking the ascetic to be a model of goodness, the farmer brings his hundred nishkas of gold to the hermitage and there buries them, requesting him to keep watch over them. Confiding in the pious protestations of the hermit, the farmer goes off, but the former covertly removes the gold and buries it in the wayside. The very next day the ascetic takes leave of the farmer, but returns shortly after to return a straw from the farmer’s roof which has stuck in his matted hair but which does not belong to him. This over-manifestation of moral sensitiveness arouses the suspicion of a shrewd trader who has halted on the outskirts of the village and who forthwith sees the farmer and warns him. Away they hasten in hot pursuit, catch the rascal, and kick and cuff him till he shows to them where he hid the gold. The trader, who is the Bodhisattva of this story, rebukes the ascetic, saying: “So a hundred Nishkas did not trouble your conscience so much as that straw." Here then a specific class of coins—gold coins—is mentioned, *viz.* Nishkas, for the valuation of a rich farmer's hoarding. Only two references to Nishkas may be given out of the many which I was able to trace in the Jātakas.

c7.20.3

Some of you are pretty well conversant with the Vessantara Jātaka, which, among other things, tells us how Vessantara, King of Śibi, who had retired to a forest, gives over his son and daughter completely to a Brāhman called Jūjaka.¹ Of course, the children are reluctant to go, and he comforts them by saying : "Son Jāli, if you wish to become free, you must pay the Brāhman a thousand Nishkas. But your sister is very beautiful ; if any person of low birth should give the Brāhman so and so much to make her free, he would break her birthright. None but a king can give all things by the hundred ; therefore if your sister would be free, let her pay the Brāhman a hundred male and a hundred female slaves together with elephants, horses, bulls and Nishkas, all a hundred each." Thus did he price the children and comfort them, and taking water in his waterpot he poured it out, giving the Brāhman this precious gift of his children. Here we have a father before us, putting a price upon his children ; and as the latter are of the royal blood, naturally this price has to be the heaviest, and the coins to appraise it must necessarily be of the highest value. The Nishkas here specified must, therefore, represent the highest order of gold coins. We now turn to a third Jātaka, the Great Being of which story is a snake-king called Champeyya who allows himself to be caught by a snake-charmer for his good.

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By making the snake perform to the crowd of a frontier village the snake-charmer earns as much as one thousand Kārshāpaṇas in one single day.¹ Desire of further gain impels him to go to the capital-town, Vārāṇasī. While the performance to the local king is going on, the wife of the snake-king suddenly makes her appearance and offers a handsome ransom, one of the numerous items of which is one hundred Nishkas.² In this Jātaka we find two classes of coins specified, viz. the Kārshāpaṇas and Nishkas. The first evidently are the silver and the second the gold money of the country of Kāśi.