India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c13.29

c13.29

*EVIDENCE OF COINS*—The numismatic data of the *Ashṭādhyāyī* show that it is older than the *Arthaśāstra*. For instance, Pāṇini's (1) *Nishka*, (2) *Suvarṇa*, (3) *Śāṇa*, (4) *Śatamāna*, point to older coinage not known to Kauṭilya. Similarly Kauṭilya does not know of the significant coin names *Viṁśatika* and *Triṁśtaka* mentioned in the *Ashṭādhyāyī*, of which actual examples have been found (*ante*, 270-71). The evidence of Pāṇini's *Śatamāna* coin is of great importance in this connection. The *Śatamāna* coinage must have been in mintage and circulation in the time of Pāṇini. Its beginnings may be placed a few centuries earlier. It is significant to note in this connection that the reference to *Śatamāna* in the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa* is found only in those Books which are associated with the name of Yājñavalkya, *e.g.* in Kāṇḍa V in which Yājñavalkya is quoted as authority and in Kāṇḍas XII, XIII and XIV. There is not a single reference to the *Śatamāna* coin in the Agnichayana Books (VI-X) in which Śāṇḍilya to the exclusion of Yājñavalkya figures as the principal authority. This accords with the view that Yājñavalkya was considered as a late Brāhmaṇa-writer in comparison with the earlier works of Aitareya and Śāṭyāyana, etc. The chronological inference is that the period of currency of the *Śatamāna* coin was confined to a few centuries (c. eighth-fifth cent. B.C.) from which Kauṭilya was removed in time, but which were nearer to the epoch of the *Taittirīya* and *Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇas* and portions of the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa*, which alone mention this coin.