1864.] On Ancient Incliar^Weighis. 265 



important but reasonable variant being the assignment of three white 

 mustard seeds instead of six to the barley-corn. There are some ap- 

 parent contradictions and complications regarding palas and suvarnas, 

 and no additional information respecting the weight of the copper- 

 measure of value, which is described in Dr. Eoer's translation as 

 vaguely as in Manu, " a copper pana is of the weight of a karsha," 

 and as the English commentator justly observes, the tables " by no 

 means satisfactorily define the intrinsic weight and signification of the 

 Tana, which as the measure of pecuniary penalty" would naturally be 

 of the greatest importance. It is to be remarked that neither Manu 

 nor Yajnavalkya refer in any way to the Cowrie shell currency, which 

 was clearly in these days a seaboard circulation ; nor is any mention 

 made of the tola, which subsequently plays so leading a part in Indian 

 metrology. So much for the weights and their relative proportions 

 inter se. I shall defer any examination of the corresponding equiva- 

 lents in the English standard till I can apply the results to the extant 

 .coins of the period, 



. Before taking leave of this division of the subject, I am anxious to 

 meet, in anticipation, an objection which may possibly strike philologists 

 as hostile to the general position I have sought to maintain in this 

 paper; inasmuch as it may beheld that the fact of the several divi- 

 sions of the static tables being expressed in Sanskrit words, should^ 

 prima facie, imply that the Sanskrit-speaking " Aryans" originated 

 the system upon which the gradational scales were based. But it must 

 be remembered that the entire work from whence these data are der 

 rived is written in the Sanskrit language, its very exotic character 

 justifying the inference that it was so embodied, not with a view to 

 vulgar use, but for the purposes of a superiorly educated or, more 

 probably., of an exclusive class. Moreover, it is to be borne in mind 

 that the speech itself, though foreign, had for many centuries been par- 

 tially introduced into the land, and constituted the chosen means of 

 expression of the dominant religious and occasional temporal authority. 

 But apart from these considerations there remains to me the more 

 comprehensive question as to how much of the Sanskrit tongue of our 

 modern dictionaries, at this time undergoing the process of formation an<J 

 maturation on Indian soil, was indebted to the local speech ? It can be 

 shown from sound palseographic, as well as from philological testimony, 

 that the intermingling Aryans borrowed Drividian letters to improve 



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