22 Ancient Indian Weights. [No. 1, 



nominal terms should appear in the grammar of a people would, at the 

 very least, imply that the object designated had attained extensive 

 local recognition. Without touching the higher ground, as to how 

 soon in a nation's linguistic progress fixed grammatical definitions 

 may become a religious, intellectual, or material need, it cannot but be 

 conceded that if the name and description of a coin find a place among 

 rules for the formation of words, this should be evidence sufficient to 

 prove that such a product of mechanical art must long have passed 

 into the dealings and commercial life of the nation at large ere it could 

 have become incorporated in the conventional speech, and been sanc- 

 tioned in the teachings of the schools. 



Admitting these inferences, it remains to decide upon the date of 

 the grammarian himself. Professor G-olclstucker conceives that he has 

 lately obtained most important confirmatory testimony that Pdnini lived 

 before Buddha Sdkya Muni (b.c. 543).* Accepting this period for the 

 record in writing of the passage in question, I am satisfied to leave the 

 limit of the anterior currency of the coins open to free discussion. 



The allusions to money in the sacred literature of Sakya Muni are 

 so frequent, in comparison with their rare occurrence in the Vedic 

 writings, as to have led one of our modern inquirers to infer that the 

 Buddhists understood and employed the art of coining long before their 

 Brahman adversaries ;f a more simple and satisfactory reason may be 

 assigned for the apparent data, in the fact that the Vedas and their 

 supplemental rituals refer to an ideal polytheism, while the Buddhist 

 scriptures are based on the personal biography of a man living in the 

 flesh among the people of India, whose manners and customs are thus 



a form." ' Katyayana and Patanjali make no observation on these words, but 

 the Kasika-vritti says that ' form ' here means ' the form or shape of a man 

 which was struck on it;' and considering that rupa, 'form,' is in this Sutra 

 used without any addition — or emphatically, the ellipsis of purusha, 'man' — is 

 perfectly natural and justified. As to the date of the Kasikavritti, nothing 

 positive is as yet known of it ; it is certain, however, that it is much later than 

 the Mahabhashya; but even without its interpretation, I hold that no other 

 sense than that put by it on this Sutra could rationally be attributed to it." 



* While on the subject of dates, I may mention that since the publication of 

 the earlier portion of this article, a paper has been presented to the Royal Asiatic 

 Society, by Dr. Whitney, " On the Jyotisha Observation " (adverted to in Note 

 14, page 255, "Journal As. Soc. Bengal," 1861) questioning the accuracy of the 

 results of previous calculations. The utmost possible limit of error, however, 

 is admitted to lie between 1120 and 1187 B.C., instead of within the 1181 and 

 1186 b.c, already quoted. 



f Spence Hardy, " Eastern Monachism," Lond., 1850, p. 66. 



