
1865.] Ancient Indian Weights. 17 
lose its position as the general arbiter of all fiscal and mercantile 
transactions. With the accumulated increase of wealth, its cumbrous 
volume made an opening for the silver Rupee, which established itself 
permanently in its place, and as time went on, gold Muhars had an 
exceptional and temporary acceptance ; but, like the rwpees of that mon- 
arch, they were left to find their own level in the market, as certain 
inexperienced servants of the East India Company discovered, to their 
astonishment, to be still the ruling idea of the community at large, 
when, in subsequent times, they incautiously declared gold a legal 
~ tender.* 
T have already extracted from the ancient Sanskrit code the contem- 
poraneous definition of the weights of metal in use “ for the purpose 
of worldly business.” I will now examine how much of an approxi- 
mation to the conventional notion of a money currency had been reach- 
ed, at the period of the composition of the Vedas and other archaic 
writings. 
Professor Wilson was under the impression that he had discovered a 
reference to coined money in the Vedas, where, in the enumeration of 
the gifts bestowed upon the Aishi Garga, mention is made of “ten 
purses” of gold ;+ unfortunately, the contents of these “purses, bags, 
or chests,” or whatever may have been the intentional meaning of 
kosayth in this place, do not figure in the original text of the hymn, 
but form part of the conjectural additions of the commentator 
Scyana.{ As such, it is useless to speculate further on the passage ; 
but the words dasa hiranya pinddn, “ten lumps of gold,” in the sue- 
ceeding verse, seem to have a much more direct bearing on the general 
question, and would almost in themselves establish a reckoning by 
tale. Had the text merely confined itself to the expression “ lumps 
of gold” in the generic sense, crude and undefined fragments of metal 
Dinars [Gladwin’s “ Ayin Akbari,” ii. pp. 3,107,110. See also i. pp- 2, 3, 4, 
35, 37,39}. Ido not lose sight of the fact of the long-continued use of an 
intermediate mixed silver and copper currency, which filled in the divisions 
between, and co-existed with higher and lower coinage of unalloyed metals | N. 
C., xv. pp. 153, 163; Prinsep’s “ Essays,” Useful Tables, p- 71]. Dédms, like 
So, Karsha, were also occasionally used as weights (See Ayin-Akbari 
*S Sir James Steuart, “The Principles of Money, &c., in Bengal.” Calcutta, 
1772, p. 26 ; Prinsep’s “ Essays,” Useful Tables, pp, 73, 76, 77. 
tT “ Rig Veda Sanhita,” iii. pp. xvi. and 474. 
ft “Rig Veda,” text, vol. i, p. 699; Max Miiller, Sce also Wilson, “R. V. 
8.,” i. p. xlix. and iii; and note 4, page 474, 
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