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India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c9.s4: Section 7. Exchange and Barter

India as Known to Pāṇini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashṭādhyāyī c9.s4

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Section 7. Exchange and Barter

c9.s4.1

Pāṇini refers to barter as *nimāna* (V. 2. 47), i.e. exchange of goods by agreement. What was given in exchange was considered as equivalent in price (*mūlya*) to what was received (*nimeya*). The *sūtra Saṅkhyāyā guṇasya nimāne mayaṭ* seeks to regulate the grammatical formation expressing the barter ratio, on the pattern that the price of a portion of one thing is equal to so many portions of the other. For example, *dvimayaṁ udaśvid yavānām*, "butter-milk is two-times the value of barley", *i.e.* two parts of barley is the price of one part of butter-milk (*udaśvit*). The comparison must be made with one portion of *nimeya* (thing to be bought) with several portions of the *nimāna*. The ratio must be x : 1, but never x : 2, or x : 3, *etc.*, in which x denotes the *nimāna*.

c9.s4.2

*NATURE OF BARTER TRANSACTIONS*—The range of articles covered by barter mostly concerns simple things of ordinary use, such as food, clothing, and domesticated animals. Pāṇini refers to *vasana* or a piece of cloth as a medium of exchange, the thing purchased in exchange for cloth being called *vāsana* (V. 1. 27). In Hindi *bāsan* (=Skt. *vāsana*) means household utensils. It is thus indicated that the weavers exchanged pieces of cloth with utensils and other articles they needed. There is also reference to articles purchased for one *go-puchchha* (*go-puchchhena krītaṁ*, *gaupuchchhikam*, V. 1. 19). Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar takes *go-puchchha* literally to be the tail of a cow as a circulating medium, (*Anc. Ind. Num.*, p. 169-70), but *go-puchchha* indicated the cow itself as in the analogous English term 'cattle-head'. The idiom had its origin in the ancient custom of transferring the ownership of a cow by holding her tail; the grazing tax levied per head of cattle is still called *puchchhī* or tail-tax in north India. From the Vedic period the cow had formed a medium of exchange and a measure of value (*Vedic Index*, I. 196, 234). The term *gau-puchchhika* should thus be taken to have applied to an object received in exchange for one cow. Patañjali mentions an even bigger transaction negotiated in exchange for five cows (*pañchabhir-gobhiḥ krītaḥ pañchaguḥ*, *Bhāshya*, I. 2. 44; I. 216); and also the purchasing of a chariot for five *kroshṭrīs* (VII.1.96; III. 273). The meaning of *kroshṭrī* in *pañcha-kroshṭrī-krīta-ratha* is not clear; it was perhaps the name of a particular stack of grain like *dhānya-gava* (bull-stack mentioned in *sūtra* VI.2.72. *Dvi-kambalyā*, *tri-kambalyā* cited on IV.1.22 refer to sheep purchased for two or three *kambalya* measures of wool, one *kambalya* being equal to 5 seers (*Kāśikā* on Pāṇini V.1.3). The *Kāśikā* cites *pañchāśvā* and *daśāśvā*, i.e. a female slave purchased for the price of five or ten horses (IV. 1. 22).

c9.s4.3

Mention is also made of *kaṁsa* (V. 1. 25), *śūrpa* (V. 1. 26) and *khārī* (V. 1. 33) in connection with the purchase of commodities. Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar points out 'As these are clearly measures of capacity, the only inference possible is that such commodities were bought by means of these measures and most probably with grains which were the staple food of the province' (*Anc. Ind. Num.* p. 170). In several examples and counter-examples we find reference to other measures of weight used in bartering transactions, e.g. *dvyañjali*, *tryañjali*, purchased for two or three handfuls (*dvābhyām añjalibhyāṁ krītaḥ*, *Kāśikā* on V.4.102, *Dvi-tribhyāṁ añjaleḥ*). Similarly, an object purchased for two or three *āchita* measures was called *dvyāchitā*, *tryāchitā* (IV.1.22, *āchita* = 10 *bhāra* or 25 maunds). Pāṇini mentions *śaurpa* and *śaurpika* as applied to articles purchased for one *śūrpa* measure (V. 1. 26), to which Patañjali adds *dvi-śūrpa* and *tri-śūrpa* (II. 346, 348). The *goṇī* measure (I. 2. 50) was equal to two *śūrpas* and is mentioned in connection with barter in such phrases as *pañcha-goṇiḥ* and *daśa-goṇiḥ*, ‘purchased for 5 or 10 *goṇis*’ (I. 226), the articles so purchased being cloth according to the *Kāśikā* (I. 2. 50).

c9.s4.4

The examples *pañcha-nauḥ*, *daśa-nauḥ* refer to a big deal in exchange for five or ten boatfuls of merchandise (*Kāśikā* on *Nāvo Dvigoḥ*, V. 4. 99). Patañjali refers to consignments of five hundred boats or five hundred rafts (*pañch-oḍupa-śatāni tīrṇāni, pañcha-phalaka-śatāni tīrṇāni*, *Bhāshya*, II. 356), which point to a flourishing riverine traffic in goods which rich merchants (*parama-vāṇija*, *uttama-vāṇija* on Pāṇini V.2.13) must have handled.

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