The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s9.335

v1.c19.s9.335

The ‘sample’ mentioned above is suggestive of a surviving payment made in kind. That the ancient systems of barter and of reckoning values by cows or by rice-measures had for the most part been replaced by the use of a metal currency, carrying well understood and generally accepted exchange value, is attested by the earliest Buddhist literature. Barter emerges in certain contingencies⁸, as e.g. when a wanderer obtains a meal from a woodlander for a gold pin⁹, or when among humble folk a dog is bought for a *kahāpaṇa* (*kārshāpaṇa*) *plus* a cloak¹⁰. Barter was also permitted in special commodities by the law-books ascribed to Gautama¹¹ and Vasishṭha¹², and was prescribed in certain cases for the *Saṅgha*¹³, to whom the use of money was forbidden¹⁴. Moreover, as a standard of value, it is possible that rice was still used when the Jātaka-book was compiled¹⁵.