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 Satamdna by Katyayana (xx. 2, 6), 
and the mention of a “ yellow-gold satamana’”’ (hiranyam suvarnam 
s‘atamdnam) in the Satapatha Braéhmana (xii. 7, 2, &.), showing that 
the term s’atamdna, which is given by Manu 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,y The quotation of Swvarna 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 very 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 Manu, 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 coimed 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. 
+ See also the quotation from “ Yajnavalkya,” section i. sl. 364; Num. Chron., 
1864, note, p. 56. 
{ Madhava in Kalanirnaya. 
§ Walter Elliot, “ Madras Journal of Lit. and Science,” 1858, p. 224. Salaku 
(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. 

