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xviii
NARADA.
statement of the value of a Dînära which, it says, is called a Suvarna also. The reception of Dînâras among the ordinary coins of that period shows that their circulation in India must have commenced soine time before the Naradasmriti was written. The first importation of gold Dînaras into India cannot be referred to an earlier period than the time of the Roman emperors, and the gold Dînâras most numerously found in India belong to the third century A.D.?
The earliest reference to a work called Náradiya References to Dharmasastra seems to be contained in a
Nârada. work of the sixth century, Båna's Kâdambari?. Whether the compiler of the Pañkatantra was acquainted with the Nárada-smriti appears to be doubtful. The Pañkatantra in Kosegarten's edition contains a legal text which is attributed to Narada, though it is not to be found in the Nárada-smriti. The standard Bombay edition of the Pañkatantra has that very text, but the name of Nârada is omitted 3. Medhâtithi's Manubhåshya, which seems to belong to the ninth century, contains several references to the Narada-smriti, and Asahảya, who appears to have preceded Medhâtithi, is the reputed author of the ancient Commentary on it, which has largely been used for the present work 4. These considerations tend to show that the composition
of the Narada-smriti cannot be referred to Result.
a more recent period than the fifth century A.D., or the sixth century at the very latest. Nor can it belong to a much earlier age than that. This estimate of its age agrees with the results arrived at, thirteen years ago, from the very scanty data then available.
1 Bühler, S. B. E., vol. xxv, p. cvii; West and Bühler, p. 48; Max Müller, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 245; Jolly, Tagore Law Lectures, p. 36; Hörnle, Proceedings of the Seventh Congress of Orientalists, p. 134.
'P. 91 in Peterson's edition. See Bühler, Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxv, p. cvii, note 1.
See Kosegarten's PaAkatantra III, 94; Bombay ed., III, 2. It is true that the two texts immediately preceding the text in question in the Pankatantra may be compared with Narada XI, 2 and I, 5, 79.
The fact that Asahaya refers to a coin called dramma, i. e. the Greek 8paxuh, may be used for fixing the earlier limit of his date.
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