India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c9.s6.18

c9.s6.18

But the *śatamāna* was more properly related to silver coinage. In the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa* (XIII. 2. 3.2) it is stated: 'Gold and silver will be the fee for the sake of variety to correspond to the manifold forms of the deity, and that *dakshiṇā* will be *Śatamāna*, since a human being lives for one hundred years' (*Rajataṁ hiraṇyaṁ dakshiṇā nānārūpatayā śatamānaṁ bhavati śatāyur-vai purushaḥ*, ŚB., XIII.4.2. 10). Here is a definite reference to a silver *śatamāna* coin of 100 parts, *i.e.* 100 *ratti* wt. Manu mentions the silver *śatamāna* as equal to ten *dharaṇas* or 320 *rattis* in wt. (VIII. 137), but no actual specimen of a silver punch-marked coin conforms to the extraordinary weight of 560 grains.