Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c5.t4.171

c5.t4.171

Money, as a medium of exchange, was in use in India from very early times.² The *Jātakas* leave no doubt whatever as to the use of coins as currency in exchange. Mrs. Rhys Davids rightly observes: "The Buddhist literature reveals a society having the full use and enjoyment of plentiful coinage. The worth of every marketable commodity, from a dead mouse and a day at the festival, up to all kinds of fees, pensions, fixed loans, stored treasure and income, is stated in figures of a certain coin and its fraction and that is either explicitly stated or implied to be *Kahāpaṇa*."³