India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c9.s6.19

c9.s6.19

The heaviest silver punch-marked pieces so far discovered are the oblong bars found by Sir John Marshall in the Bhir mound at Taxila along with two coins of Alexander the Great and one of Philip Aridaeus, 'fresh from the mint' and therefore assignable to about the middle of fourth century B. C. Their weights range between 155.7 grains (in the case of much worn pieces) to 177.3 grains (Allan, *Anc. Ind. Coins*, p. xiii, also pp. 1-2). Allan connects them, without good reason, with the weight standard of the Achaemenid *siglos* and thinks that they were struck as double *sigloi*. Now, the maximum weight of the Persian *sigloi* is said to be 86.45 grains and that of a double *siglos* could not have exceeded 173 grains, which makes Allan's identification untenable (cf. Durga Prasad, *Science and Culture*, 1938, pp. 462-65). In terms of an Indian weight standard these oblong bars approximate to 100 *ratti* or 180 grains weight, the heaviest one of 177.3 grains being equal to 98.5 *rattis*, a *ratti* weighing 1.8 grs. Taking the literal meaning of *śatamāna*, 'of the weight of 100 *māna*' or *krishṇalas* as suggested in the *Vedic Index* (II. 152), it would appear that the Takshaśilā bent-bar coins (*śalākā*) represent the ancient *śatamāna* coins of silver. They are struck with symbols with regular orientation and were part of the oldest punch-marked currency. Kātyāyana mentions *śatamāna* in a *vārttika*¹ to regularise such formations as *adhyardha-śatamānam*, *dvi-śatamānam* (purchased for 1½ or 2 *śatamānas*) which suggests that the *śatamāna* was a current coin up to the time of Kātyāyana (cf. also *Bhāshya* on V. 1. 29).