Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c3.s11.987

v1.c3.s11.987

There is little evidence of a standard of value in currency having been adopted. When no specific mention is made of the standard, the unit was probably the cow.⁹ In a considerable number of passages of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa¹⁰ and elsewhere,¹¹ however, the expression hiraṇyam śata-mānam suggests that there must have been some standard other than cows, though it might in all these passages be rendered as ‘gold worth a hundred cows.’ But the use of the Kṛṣṇala as a measure of weight¹² suggests that the meaning is ‘gold weighing a hundred Kṛṣṇalas,’ and this seems the more probable explanation. This unit seems not to be known in the Rigveda, where the meaning of the term Manā, which occurs once, is mysterious, and where necklets (Niṣka) seem to have been one of the more portable forms of wealth, like jewellery in modern India, and may perhaps have served as a means of exchange.