India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c9.s6.t1.54

c9.s6.t1.54

It appears that the ten-rupee loan referred to by Pāṇini in the phrase *daśaikādaśa*, became later the norm. By the time of Kātyāyana we find that *daśārṇa*, a loan of ten rupees, had become a regular linguistic expression (VI.1.89.8; III.69). The ten-rupee loan still continues to be the basis of petty agrarian loans under the name of *das-ke-bārah* (ten-for-twelve system). Kātyāyana also mentions special loans like *vatsatarārṇa* ‘contracted for purchasing a young bull’; *kambalārṇa*, ‘loan for buying a blanket of standard size’, which according to Pāṇini was manufactured out of a *kambalya* measure (five seers) of wool; and *vasanārṇa*, loan for buying cloth. We should understand *vasana* as a cloth of standard measurement, weight and price so that it could be used as a unit of exchange in such transactions as envisaged in *sūtra* V.1.27 (purchased for one *vasana*). *Vasana* was most likely the standard *śāṭaka* cloth mentioned by Patañjali as costing, one *kārshāpaṇa* each (V.1.21; II.346).