India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c8.s8.10

c8.s8.10

On *sūtra*, V.1.21 Patañjali cites an illustration from which we learn that the price of one hundred *śāṭakas* or *dhotis* was one hundred (*Śatena krītaṁ śatyaṁ śāṭaka-śatam*, II.346). It will be shown in the Section on coins that when the number occurs without specifying the name of the coin, a silver *kārshāpaṇa* was usually meant. We may therefore say that in the time of Patañjali (2nd century B.C.) the selling price of an average cotton *sārī* was one silver *kārshāpaṇa*.