Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s6.1

c12.s6.1

Long before the rise of the Nandas and the Mauryas India had evolved her own monetary system based on the indigenous standards. The Vedic *nishka*, *śatamāna* and *suvarṇa* may have been ingots of gold of definite weights. But in later works such as the *Jātakas*, the grammar of Pāṇini and the *Arthaśāstra* of Kauṭilya, we have definite references to gold coins called *nishka* and *suvarṇa*, silver coins called *kārshāpaṇas* or *dharaṇas* and copper coins also called *kārshāpaṇas*, along with their multiples and sub-divisions. The Vedic *śatamāna*, as its name implies, was based on the *māna* unit, a weight known to the *Ṛigveda*. In later times the *māna* was changed for the lighter unit called *kṛishṇala* or *rati*, the seed of the *guñja*-berry. The weight of the gold *suvarṇa* in the *Arthaśāstra* as well as in Manu and Yājñavalkya is given as 80 *guñjas* or *ratis*, the copper *kārshāpaṇa* according to Manu and Yājñavalkya also weighing 80 *ratis*. The weight of the silver *dharaṇas* in the *Arthaśāstra*, however, amounts very nearly to 80 *ratis*, while in Manu and Yājñavalkya it is only 32 *ratis*¹. As Professor Rapson has well observed², the silver and copper coinages in Ancient India were often independent of each other, with different areas of circulation. In the *Arthaśāstra*, however, the silver *paṇa* with its sub-divisions is evidently recognised as the standard coin, while the copper *māshaka* with its divisions ranks as a token currency. Apparently copper was linked up with silver in such a way that the *māshaka* was one-sixteenth in value of the silver *paṇa*, its weight varying with the ratio between the two metals³.