Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c7.20.4

c7.20.4

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.