20 Ancient Indian Weights. [No. 1, 



in many instances, undesignedly preserved to history the choicest and 

 most interesting numismatic memorials of olden time. 



Dr. Weber has collected from the Sutras and later Vedic writings, 

 a number of references to money weights,* the most interesting of 

 which are the notice of the silver Satamana by Katyayana (xx. 2, 6), 

 and the mention of a " yellow-gold satamana" (hiranyam suvarnam 

 s' atamdnam) in the Satapatha Brahmana (xii. 7, 2, &c), showing that 

 the term s'atamdna, which is given by Mann exclusively as a weight 

 of silver, had come to be used indifferently with its coincident metric 

 denomination, the Nishka, which, in earlier times, specially implied a 

 measure of gold,f The quotation of Suvarna S'aldkdni from the 

 Sruti,$ is also of importance, the S'aldka identifying the gold piece 

 directly with the parallel issue of silver, the residuary specimens of 

 which retain the name to this day in the South of India. § 



Having obtained from the Vedas themselves so much of an indica- 

 tion of the use of circulating monetary weights at the veiy early period 

 to which those hymns are now admitted to belong, my task in proving 

 an obvious advance upon the rudimentary phase of the science of money, 

 under Mann, will be simple ; especially as so much has already been 

 incidentally brought forward, tending to dissipate any remaining doubt 

 as to the existence of a coined copper currency, much anterior to the 

 epoch, when the customs and usages of preceding ages had to be 

 acknowledged as the practical basis of, and as far as might be, conciliated 

 in, the new code which was to make Brahmanism absolute. || As I 

 have already stated, there is no direct evidence to show what technic 

 art had achieved in those days, or what form or finish was given to 

 the current money ; but, as with the copper, so with the divisional 

 parts of gold and silver, in the table quoted from Manu (viii. 131 — 137) ; 

 their classification represents something more than a mere theoretical 



* " Zeitschrift," 1864, p. 138-9. 



f See also the quotation from " Yajnavalkya," section i. si. 364 ; Num. Chron., 

 1864, note, p. 56. 



J Madhava in Kalanirnaya. 



§ Walter Elliot, " Madras Journal of Lit. and Science," 1858, p. 224. Saldlcu 

 (Telugu), " A dent or mark on a coin denoting its goodness." — Wilson, 

 " Glossary." The leading meaning of the Sanskrit S'aldka is given as a dart, an 

 arrow : one of its derivative meanings is " an oblong quadrangular piece of 

 ivory or bone used in playing a particular game ; a domino." — Wilson, " Sanskrit 

 Dictionary." 



|| " No greater crime is known on earth than slaying a Brahman." — Manu, 

 viii. 381. 



