Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c5.t4.9

c5.t4.9

But this is all general. We do not know as to how and under what circumstances money was lent and what the interest on that money was.⁹ The term which appears in the Law Books as usury—vṛddhi, vaḍḍhi—is found,¹⁰ meaning profit or interest. The practice of borrowing money (iṇamādāya: iṇaṃ gahetvā) seems to have been almost universal. That the rates of interest were high or that the creditor (iṇāyika) was intent on profit-mongering may be inferred from this unmistakable fact that the familiar figure of the embarrassed, even desperate debtor (dhāraṇako) flits across the pages of the Jātakas.¹¹ A bankrupt invites his creditors to bring their debt sheets (iṇapaṇṇāni: mod. khuts) for settlement, only to drown himself before their very eyes.¹² Another flies away to a forest,¹³ Anxieties of a debtor were indeed many. Freedom from debts (*iṇamokkho*) was not easy, though desired.¹ Only a debts-freed man was considered fit for renunciation,² and that was the reason why it was felt necessary to debar any candidate who was a debtor from admission to the Buddhist *Saṅgha*.³ Sometimes the poor borrower, perhaps the cultivator or the small artisan, becomes heavily indebted, and the debt often runs through the life of the borrower and is inherited by his heirs (*pettikaṃ iṇaṃ*⁴) much in the same way as today.