Jain Journal 1987 01

SR No.: 520085
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publication Year: 1987
Total Pages: 40
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Journal, & India
File Size: 3 MB

Page 28

JANUARY, 1987
pre-Mughal series than the broad square gold tankah of high relief struck at Qutbabad Fort.”'17
Occupying a high position at the mint, Pheru must have had an active role in issuing these diverse types of coins and in the improvements in minting technology. It is indeed fortunate that he shared his master's enthusiasm for coins and, drawing upon his own experience and that of his caste, left us an excellent guide to the coinage of northern India.
3.0 It is now pertinent to ask whether Pheru's attempt at popularisation of science has had any impact or emulation. Perhaps a thorough survey of the Jaina Mss. collections in Gujarat and Rajasthan may one day bring to light some scientific texts written in popular speech, but on the whole the tradition of writing in Sanskrit metres was so strong that Pheru's example was rarely followed. On gemmology, however, there are some texts written in old Hindi and old Rajasthani by jewellers and even by Jaina monks. But these are faithful renderings of the Sanskrit originals and do not exhibit any innovations.18 An old Gujarati text of the fifteenth or sixteenth century called Vividha-varnaka enumerates tamkapariksā (i.e. examination of coins) as one of the sciences,19 but except the Dravyaparikṣā no other text on this subject has been discovered so far.
Just as English is used today in India for the sake of pan-Indian or even worldwide communication, the Hindu and Jaina scientists wrote in the pan-Indian medium of Sanskrit until it was replaced by English. Thakkura Pheru, therefore, remains the only versatile scholar to have attempted to popularise science.
17 H. Nelson Wright, The Coinage and Metrology of the Sultans of Delhi (reprint),
New Delhi 1974, pp. 107-8. 18 Cf. Agarchand Nahata and Bhanwarlal Nahata, Ratnapariksa, Calcutta n.d. 19 See Varnaka-Samuccaya, ed. B. J. Sandesera, Pt. 1, Baroda 1956, p. 48.