Indian Antiquary Vol 42

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 119

APRIL, 1913.]
have the "cash" pure and simple at 4320 and 8840 to the dollar respectively. Another scale showing a very low small denomination was that of Dantaic on the German Baltics showing 1620 pfening to the rixdollar.
THE OBSOLETE MALAY TIN CURRENCY
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Without pursuing the enquiry further it reems to be clear that, in the Malay Peninsula and in Europe, mankind has been working on identical lines in devising means for finding proportions into which to divide its currency. And it seems also reasonable to assume that the scales have all originatel out of the simple and necessary processes of rapidly separating (for counting) shells, beans or seeds from the heap, the said shells, beans and seeds having Leen selected for the purpose on account of their observed constant average weight.
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The wide spread and the antiqnity of the ideas leading to the Malay scales for currency and money are thus clearly brought out, but the gambar (model of animal) currency can be shown to give concrete form to ideas equally ancient and widely distributed in Oriental lands.
That the principle of metal currency in ingots and models of animals and common objects was of recognised standing in India in the 1st or 2nd century B. C. is attested by the quotations which follow.
Firstly, there is a statement in the Nidana katha,40 a Sinhalese Buddhist compilation of the 5th century A. D. about the land on which Anathapindika, the famous rich merchant disciple of Buddha, built the Jetavana Vihara or Monasteryl :-"Long ago, too, in the time of the Blessed Buddha Vipassin, a merchant named Punabbasa Mitta bought that very spot by laying golden bricks [P ingots] over it, and built a monastery there a league in length. And in the time of the Blessed Buddha Sikhin, a merchant named Sirivadḍha bought that very spot by standing golden ploughshares over it, and built there a monastery three quarters of a league in length. And in the time of the Blessed Buddha Vessabha, a merchant named Sōtthiya bought that very spot by laying golden elephant feet along it, and built a monastery there half a league in length. And in the time of the Blessed Buddha Kakusandha, a merchant named Achchuta also bought that very spot by laying golden bricks on it, and built there a monastery a quarter of a league in length. And in the time of the Blessed Buddha Kōnagamana, a merchant named Ugga bought that very spot by laying golden tortoises over it, and built there a monastery balf a league in length. And in the time of the Blessed Buddha Kassapa, a merchant named Sumangala bought that very spot by laying golden bricks over it, and built there a monastery sixty acres in extent. And in the time of our Blessed One, Anathapindika, the merchant bought that very spot by laying kahapanas over it and built there a monastery thirty acres in extent."
The writer, in bringing the legendary history of the Monastery down to then comparatively modern times, is obviously using expressions, "bricks," "ploughshares," "elephant feet," "tortoises," which indicate ingots of certain shapes current as weights in his time, till he comes to the last payment, which he states in terms of a recognised weight.2 As a matter of fact he was recording in monkish fashion a legend that was in existence many centuries earlier.
Plate LVII of Cunningham's Barhut Stupa, 1879, contains an inscribed has relief, which represent Anathapindika making over to the Church (Sanga) the park of Jetavana, which he had
30 Op. cit., p. 83.
30 Kelly, op. cit., p. 278.
Rhys Davids, Buddhist Birth-stories, p. 132 f.
1 The account purports to relate to a gold ingot currency, of which the following is a quite modern instance: "Gold continues to pass current in small uncoined round balls usually weighing a tola." W. Robinson, Account of Assam, 1841, pp. 249, 987 in Ridgeway, Origin of Currency, p. 177 n.
41 Kahapanam (Skr, karshapana) was in general terms a gold weight 16 masha or about 176 gr