Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c9.60

c9.60

It is not to be expected that such a big officer as Rūpadarśaka could personally examine all coins and detect those that were counterfeit. He must have had a number of officials under him, and this must have been the duty of one of them. The name of this subordinate official has nowhere been mentioned by Kauṭilya, but, from the passage of Buddhaghosa's *Visuddhi-magga* to which I have more than once drawn your attention, it appears that he could be no other than Hiraṇyika or Sauvarṇika as he has been termed in Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra. One of his duties, as I have mentioned to you in my last lecture, was to find out at what village, town, hill or river and by what mint-master any particular coin was struck. Another function of his was to detect what coin was genuine, what counterfeit, and what partly genuine and partly counterfeit. And we are told that he performed these duties by observing the coins, by handling them, by sounding, smelling and even licking them. It is not quite clear why the Hiraṇyikas had to use their senses of smell and taste. At any rate none of the shroffs of the modern day who are their successors are known to make use of these senses. Is it possible that they had to use them to distinguish between wood, bamboo, palm-leaf, seed and similar coins which must have been in existence as I have shown to you already on the authority of Buddhaghoṣa?