Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c7.20.2

c7.20.2

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.