The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c18.127

c18.127

A curious table of rates of salary is given. The pay ranged from 48,000 silver *panas* a year for the heir apparent and certain high officers of state to 60 *panas* for a labourer.¹ No specimen of a silver *pana* is known, but it was presumably of the same weight as a copper *karsha*, namely, about 146 grains, or 9·46 grammes.² The ‘punch-marked’ pieces of impure silver (*purāna* or *dharana*), which are known to have been in ordinary use in the author’s time, are struck to a standard of about 56 grains, or 3·628 grammes. Possibly this silver *pana* may have been only a money of account. The value of a silver *pana*, which presumably was much alloyed like the ‘punch-marked’ coins, may be taken as not far from a shilling.