
1865.] Ancient Indian Weights. 15 
initial datum and “foundation of the Ser and DMan,’* 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 be, 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,t 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;{ down the Ganges 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, &e. See also “ Jour. As. Soc., Bengal,” i. 445. 
+ One example may suffice. “The toll ata 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 fora woman; and an eighth for an unloaded man.”—Manu, viii. 
404, 
{ “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. 


