Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c9.2.2

c9.2.2

We have here seventeen boys on this side of twenty and not far removed from it, and the parents of one of them, *viz.* Upāli, seriously thinking of introducing him to an avocation which will enable him to live a life of ease and comfort. Evidently, therefore, *Lekha*, *Gaṇanā* and *Rūpa* must be so interpreted as to denote each a profession. It is no use, therefore, taking them to be merely the “three R’s” as Bühler¹ and Rhys Davids have done. *Lekha* thus cannot here signify learning to write A, B, C, but rather ‘the art of writing,’ which constitutes the profession of a Lekhaka. This ‘art of writing’ included not only the niceties of diction and style but also the different forms of correspondence, as will be seen from Chapter X of the *Adhyaksha-prachāra* of Kauṭilya’s *Arthaśāstra*, which in its concluding verse tells us that there were not one but many treatises on the subject. The word gaṇanā for similar reasons cannot mean ‘arithmetic’ but rather ‘accounts’ corresponding to gāṇanikya of Kauṭilya. Even in later times this word had this meaning, and we thus find the term Gaṇanā-pati used by Kalhaṇa in his Rāja-taraṅgiṇī¹ and understood correctly by Sir Aurel Stein to denote ‘Head of Account Office.’ Study of Gaṇanā would thus make a candidate qualified to hold a post in the Akshapaṭala Department.