India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c9.s6.26

c9.s6.26

*Kārshāpaṇa* was the name of the silver punch-marked coin of which numerous hoards have been found in various parts of India. It was the standard medium of exchange from about the sixth century B. C. downwards. Like the present rupee it had its sub-multiples, of which Pāṇini mentions ½ as *ardha* (V. 1. 48, *ardha-śabdo rūpakārdhasya rūḍhiḥ*, *Kāśikā*) and *bhāga* (V. 1. 49 *bhāga-śabdo' pi rūpakārdhasya vāchakaḥ*); ¼ as *pāda* (V. 1. 34); and 1|16 as *māsha* (V. 1. 34). When Pāṇini refers to big sums (V. 1. 27; 29; 34) without specifying the name of the coin it is the silver *kārshāpaṇa* that is meant as being the standard coin of his time. The *Jātakas* also show that the *kārshāpaṇa* was then the standard coin of the country (cf. D. R. Bhandarkar, A. I. N. p. 79). In *sūtra* V. 1. 21 Pāṇini teaches a suffix after 100 (*śata*) without the name of a coin in the sense of 'purchased therewith'; in *sūtra* V. 1. 27, after 1000 (*sahasra*); and in V. 1. 29 after 1,500 (*adhyardha-sahasra*) and 2000 (*dvi-sahasra*), etc. In all these cases the standard coin, *viz.* the silver *kārshāpaṇa*, is to be understood. The *Gaṅgamāla Jātaka* likewise mentions big amounts of a hundred thousand and fifty thousand pieces where *kārshāpaṇa* is understood. Similarly, the *Arthaśāstra* (p. 368) refers in a descending order to *śata-sahasra*, *pañchāśat-sahasra*, *daśa-sahasra*, *pañcha-sahasra*, *sahasra*, *śata* and *viṁśati* coins, which meant so many silver *paṇas* (*kārshāpaṇas*). The same linguistic form is known to Patañjali who mentions *śata-sahasra* coins without the word *kārshāpaṇa* (II. 1. 69. 5; I. 404), and refers to a hundred pairs of *sāris* purchased for one hundred, i.e. 100 silver *kārshāpaṇas* (*śatena krītam śatyaṁ śāṭaka-śatam*, *Bhāshya*, V.1.21; II.3.46). On Pāṇini V.2.45 (*Tad-asminn-adhi-* *kam-iti daśantād-ḍaḥ*) Patañjali definitely says that the phrase *ekādaśaṁ śataṁ* and *ekādaśaṁ sahasram* are understood to refer respectively to a hundred and a thousand *kārshāpaṇas* exceeded by eleven. Similarly *śata* in V. 1. 34 prefixed by *adhyardha*, *dvi* and *tri* would refer to 150, 200 and 300 *kārshāpaṇas*, and the same standard coin is meant in *sūtra* V. 4. 2 in such phrases as *dvi-śatikāṁ daṇḍitaḥ*, ‘fined two hundred (*kārshāpaṇas*).