Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v2.c41.3

v2.c41.3

We have the following strong arguments favouring the traditional view: (a) the traditional view has been endorsed by many subsequent authors of the ancient India such as Kāmandaka (author of Nitisāra), Daṇḍin (author of Daśakumāracarita), Bāṇa (author of Kādambari), etc.; (b) Arthaśāstra must have preceded two pre-Christian era texts, the Smṛti's of Manu and Yājñavalkya who reproduced extracts from the Arthaśāstra; (c) Ajivakas, mentioned in the Arthaśāstra (3.20.16), the Lokāyata philosophy (1.2.10) and several oligarchies (referred therein 11.1.4-5) disappeared from the Indian scene by the third century BC; (d) unlike the later-day Rasa-śāstra texts, the Arthaśāstra mentions ‘liquid ore’, vaikrantaka — a metal, and refers to tin as trapu and not vaṅga, and to brass as ārakūṭa and not pittala; (e) the tradition of punch-marked coin overseen by *lakṣaṇādhyakṣa* (2.12.24) was a pre-Greek tradition (the Greek tradition being engraving of ruler's effigy or the casting of coins in moulds); the counterfeiter used to strike his coins with the help of a hammer and a die bearing design after blanching the blanks in alkalis (4.4.20), since the cheaper process of casting was not yet (third century BC) in vougue.