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A History of Agriculture in India v1.c28.s6: Money

A History of Agriculture in India v1.c28.s6

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English

Contents

Money

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‘The most important feature of the economic development during this period was the use of coins as common currency. The system of barter, in vogue during the Vedic period, was gradually replaced by exchange in precious metals. Herodotus’s statement that the satrapy in India paid 360 talents of gold dust as annual tribute to the Achaemenid king of Iran shows that even in the 6th century B.C. dust or ingots of gold and silver served as currency.

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‘In the sixth century B.C., we find the use of actual coins, i.e. a piece of metal of regular shape, whose weight and fineness were guaranteed by a recognized authority. They were regularly issued by rulers, individual merchants, or corporations, and the State had no monopoly in this respect. As one or more figures were marked on these coins by a punch, as symbols of the issuing authority, these coins are generally known as punch-marked coins. They, however, bore no names, and, with rare exceptions, no legends at all, and some coins with similar devices were also cast. These coins bear no inscriptions and have symbols of various types such as human and animal figures, arms, trees, solar, lunar and planetary marks (Fig. 169). These coins appear to have been in circulation from 700 B.C. to A.D. 500. The coins of this variety are found throughout the length and breadth of India. The technique of minting punch-marked coins was a simple process. The metal was possibly melted in a crucible and the molten metal was poured on to a slab to cool. Then it was beaten on an anvil into sheets. The sheets were cut into small pieces which were later punched with symbols. Thousands of these coins found in different parts of India show that they formed regular currency for a long period.’

Indo-Greek Coins

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It is the Bactrian Greeks who first introduced coins with names and portraits of the rulers. The figure of the king on the obverse and of a deity or other symbols on the reverse are executed with a high degree of artistic skill. The credit for injecting art into the coinage of India goes to these Greek rulers. Not only the other foreign hordes who invaded India but even the Indian rulers adopted the system and issued coins of similar type. In a silver coin issued by Sophytes, a prince of the Punjab (c. 300 B.C.), we see him wearing a Greek helmet. On the reverse is an Aseel cock with large spurs (Fig. 169). Aseel is a fighting breed of poultry (Fig. 172). It is still popular with people in India who enjoy the sport of cock-fighting.

Standard

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The weight of the earliest coins was based on the system laid down in Manu-Samhita. Its unit was the rati or gunja berry weighing approximately 1.83 grains or 0.118 gram. Although no actual specimen of the suvarna or standard gold coin of 80 ratis is known, the silver purana or dharna or 32 ratis, and of the copper karshapana of 80 ratis, as well as their various multiples and subdivisions have been discovered all over India.

Relative Value of Metals

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We have no definite knowledge of the relative value of gold and silver in India before the time of the Persian Emperor Darius (518 B.C.), when it was 1:8 in his Indian Satrapy while in Persia it was 1:13. This is due to the fact that while India had gold in abundance, her supply of silver from indigenous sources was very restricted, and it had to be largely imported from outside. But gradually the ratio in India came to be the same as in the western countries. The ratio between gold and copper did not show the same fluctuation as that between gold and silver, as both gold and copper were procurable in this country. The fluctuation in the ratio between silver and copper was, however, great and led to the variation in weight of the two coins. The approximate ratio of the two metals was 1:⁵.7.

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In the earliest period, the copper Karshapana of 80 ratis (146 grains, 9.44 grams) was the standard coin. Kautilya refers to the silver Karshapanas of 32 ratis.⁵

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The Magadhan state functioned on a powerful cash economy. The *Arthashastra pana* was of silver. The age shows plenty of hoards of silver coins of the 3.5-gram standard, but none of gold and very few of copper. Every state servant was paid in cash. The highest pay was 48,000 *panas* per year each for the king's chief priest, high councillor, chief queen, queen mother, crown prince, and commander-in-chief. The lowest was 60 per year for the menial and drudge labour needed on such a large scale in camp and on State works; this was called *vishti*. A good deal of this labour was for porterage in bad country, roadmaking, digging irrigation canals or fortification ditches and piling up dykes. The scale of 60 pieces of silver shows the minimum then needed to keep body and soul together for a year under conditions of hard physical labour, with perhaps something left over for dependants. (This amounts to 17.⁵ grams of silver per month, almost exactly what was paid to the lowest Indian labour by the British East India Company in the early eighteenth century.) Carpenters and craftsmen were paid by the State at 120 *panas*. The heavy-armed soldier of the line after being trained in full got 500, which was the scale also for scribes and accountants in State service. The expert miner and the engineer received 1,000 a year. So did the best quality of spy who could disguise himself in many ways. Whereas these spies were expected actually to follow the normal pastimes of the classes whose disguise they adopted, there were no extra allowances; hence 1,000 *panas* per annum may be taken as the decent minimum for a Magadhan *grihapati's* normal standard and style of living. The lower spies got 500, which was also the scale for the registrar who reported on the village or villages in his charge. Royal messengers were paid on a fixed scale, in proportion to the distance travelled, with double rates for the long-distance couriers. There were regular pensions for those disabled in State service, and for the helpless dependants of servants and officials who died during their term. For long service, special bonuses were given in the form of allowances of rice or foodgrain, presents of cloth and the like. Never was anything given away which would permanently curtail State revenues.

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⁵ Majumdar, R.C. *Ancient India*, pp. 216-218

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Besides the coins, there was a very considerable use of instruments of credit. The great merchants in the few large towns gave letters of credit on one another. And there is a constant reference to promissory notes. Interest itself is mentioned very early; and the law books give the rate of interest current at a somewhat later date for loans on personal security as about eighteen per cent per annum.

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Kosambi, D.D. *The Culture and Civilization of Ancient India in Historical Outline*, London, 1965 Majumdar, R.C. *Ancient India*, Delhi, 1960 Majumdar, R.C. *The Classical Accounts of India*, Calcutta, 1960 Marshall, J.H. and Foucher, A. *The Monuments of Sanchi*, 1940 Rapson, E.J. (Ed.) *Cambridge History of India*, Vol. I, Cambridge, 1922 Rawlinson, H.G. *India, a Short Cultural History*, London, 1954 Rhys, Davids, T.W. *Buddhist India*, London, 1903 Sastri, K.A.N. and Srinivasachari, G. *Advanced History of India*, New Delhi, 1970

Cites (2)