1865.] Ancient Indian Weights. 15 



initial datum and " foundation of the Ser and Man"* and as the 

 criterion and handy test of the higher weights. 



To the most casual inquirer, perusing the precepts and enactments 

 embodied in the Statutes of Manu, the existence of some conventional 

 means of meeting the ordinary wants of commerce and exchange, in- 

 cident to the state of society therein typified, would he, so to say, self- 

 evident. The scale of fines, the subdivisions of the assessments of tolls, 

 the elaboration of the rates of interest, and even the mere buyings and 

 sellings adverted to, so far in advance of any remnant of a system of 

 barter, would necessitate the employment of coined money, or some 

 introductory scheme of equable divisions of metal, authoritatively or 

 otherwise current by tale,f without the need of weighing and testing 

 each unit as it passed from hand to hand. We need not attempt to 

 settle the correct technical definition of coined money, or what amount 

 of mechanical contrivance is required to constitute a coin proper : — it is 

 sufficient to say that we have flat pieces of metal, some round, some 

 square or oblong, adjusted with considerable accuracy to a fixed weight, 

 and usually of an uniform purity, seemingly verified and stamped anew 

 with distinctive symbols by succeeding generations, which clearly 

 represented an effective currency long before the ultimate date of the 

 engrossment of the Laws of Manu. The silver pieces of this class, the 

 Purdnas : are found in unusual numbers, and over an almost unlimited 

 extent of the entire breadth of Hindustan : from the banks of the 

 sacred Saraswati ; under eighteen feet of the soil which now covers 

 the buried city of Behat ; J clown the Granges to the sea; on the 

 eastern and western coasts; and in the " Kistvaens" of the ancient 

 races of the Dakhin.§ That the silver coins should have been pre- 

 served to the present time, in larger numbers than their more perishable 

 and less esteemed copper equivalents, was to be expected, especially 

 looking to the reconversion of the latter into newer dynastic mintages, 



* Prinsep's Useful Tables, ii. 95, 104-6 ; " Jour. As. Soc, Bengal," 1834, 

 Appendix, p. 61, &c. See also " Jour. As. Soc, Bengal," i. 445. 



f One example may suffice. " The toll at a ferry is one pana for an empty- 

 cart ; half a pana for a man with a load ; a quarter for a beast used in agri- 

 culture, or for a woman ; and an eighth for an unloaded man." — Manu, viii. 

 404. 



X "Jour. As. Soc, Bengal," iii. 44. Prinsep's "Essays," i. 73. For range 

 of localities, see also A. Cunningham, "Bhilsa Topes," p. 354. 



§ Caldwell, " Dravidian Grammar," p. 526. Walter Elliot, " Madras Journal 

 Lit. and Science," 1858, p. 227. 



