Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c8.83

c8.83

Just one or two minor points connected with Kārshāpaṇa before I conclude this lecture. We have seen that Kārshāpaṇa is a coin which weighs one Karsha. We have also seen that though both Manu and Yājñavalkya speak of Kārshāpaṇa, they do not specify the weight of a Karsha, which is, however, done by their commentators and which comes to 80 Ratis. Prof. Rapson goes a step further and gives an actual table, according to which 5 Ratis or Raktikās make 1 Māsha, and 16 Māshas 1 Karsha.¹ And the same is repeated by Mrs. Rhys Davids in her "Notes on Early Economic Conditions in Northern India."² Whether this table is based on the authority of any Smṛiti I have not been able to find out, but certain it is, as I have already said, that neither Manu nor Yājñavalkya has given it. The same table is, however, cited by Suśruta, and, in fact, Karsha is a weight pretty familiar to the Hindu science of medicine. Thus in accordance with this table, sixteen Māshas made one Kārshāpaṇa. The commentary on the Vinaya-Piṭaka,³ however, tells us that in the time of the king Bimbisāra five Māshakas equalled one Pāda, thus making one Kārshāpaṇa equivalent, not to sixteen, but twenty, Māshas. This receives corroboration from a Jātaka which, while mentioning the sub-divisions of a Kārshāpaṇa, speaks of a four-Māshaka piece as of lower value than a Pāda.¹ It is not, however, clear whether this Kārshāpaṇa, because it consisted of twenty Māshas, weighed more than 80 Ratis. It is quite possible that its weight continued to be the same, making its Māsha equal to four Ratis only, and not five.