Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c7.20.3

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.