1867.] The Initial Coinage of Bengal. 23 



The Institutes of Manu have preserved a record, reproduced in the 

 subjoined table, of the various weights in use, some centuries before 

 Christ,* and among other things explain, that the values of gold 

 and copper were calculated by a different metric scheme, to that 

 applied to silver. A larger number of Ratis went to the Masha in 

 the former, and the progression of numbers commenced with a five 

 (5 X 16), while the silver estimates were founded on the simple arith- 

 metic of fours (2 X 16), which constituted so special a characteristic 

 of India's home civilization. Still, the two sets of tables, starting 

 from independent bases, were very early assimilated and adapted to 

 each other in the advancing totals, so that the 320 ratis constituting 

 the satamdna of the cpiarternary multiplication, is created in the 

 third line by the use of a ten, and the quasi exotic scheme corrects 

 its independent elements by multiplying by four, and produces a 

 similar total in the contents of the Pala or Nishka. The second lines 

 of the tables are severally filled in with the aggregate numbers, 32 

 and 80, and as the duplication of the former, or 64, has been seen to 



* Manu. viii. 131. — " Those names of copper, silver, and gold (weights) 

 which are commonly used among men for the purpose of worldly business, 

 I will now comprehensively explain. 132. — The very small mote which maybe 

 discerned in a sunbeam passing through a lattice is the first of quantities, 

 and men call it a trasarenu. 133. — Eight of those trasarenus are supposed 

 equal in weight to one minute poppy-seed (liksha), three of those seeds 

 are equal to one black mustard-seed (revjasarshapa) , and three of these last to a 

 white mustard-seed (gawra-sarshapa) . 131. — Sis white mustard-seeds ar equal 

 to a middle-sized barley-corn (yava), three such barley-corns to one krshnala 

 [raktika], five krshnalas of gold are one masha, and sixteen such mdshas one 

 siovarna. 135. — Four suvamas make a pala,, ten palas a dharana, but two 

 krshnalas weighed together are considered as one silver maskaka. 136. — 

 Sixteen of those mashakas are a silver dharana or purdna, but a copper kdrsha 

 is known to be a pana or karshapana. 137. — Ten dharanas of silver are known 

 by the name of a satamdna, and the weight of four suvai'nas has also the appella- 

 tion of a nishka." These statements may be tabulated thus as the 



ANCIENT INDIAN SYSTEM OP WEIGHTS. 



SILVER. 



2 ratis = 1 masha 



32 „ = 16 „ = I X d]iaraiia > 



" [ or purana. 



320 „ = 160 „ = 10 „ 1 satamana. 



GOLD. 



5 ratis = 1 masha. 



80 „ = 16 „ = 1 suvarna. 



oorv oa a f 1 pala, or 



320 „ = 64 „ = 4 ., = 2 .? > 



" " " ( nishka. 



3200 „ = 610 „ = 40 „ — 10 „ =1 dharana 



. COPPER. 



80 ratis = 1 karshapana. 



