Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c7.58

c7.58

Let us now try to find out whether there are any references to Nishka in the pre-Brāhmaṇa strata of the Vedic compositions. But here it is necessary to repeat the remark which I made sometime ago. Nishka, I then told you, is used in two senses. It signifies ‘a coin’ and also ‘a necklace.’ Many are the passages in which the word nishka is employed in the sense of ‘a necklace,’ but passages are not wanting in which the other signification of the word occurs. Thus in the Atharva-Veda, Nishka, denoting a coin, is found at least in one place. Thus we have a passage in this Veda,¹ where Kaurama, the liberal King of the Rushamas, bestows upon a Ṛishi along with other things a hundred Nishkas, which can here mean Nishka coins only, and not necklaces, because it was customary to present one necklace only to a priest and because a hundred necklaces could not be intended for the personal ornamentation of a single individual, viz., the priest. Similarly, in the first Maṇḍala of the Ṛig-Veda we have a hymn in which the poet-priest Kākshīvat praises the munificence of his patron, King Bhāvayavya, thus: