Indian Antiquary Vol 42

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

Page 120

116
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[APRIL, 1913.
purchased by covering the ground with a layer of crores (kofi): see Pl. VII. infra. The inscription says: "Jetavana Anathapediko deti kotisanthatena keta; Anathapindika, purchaser for a layer of crores, presents Jetavans,"
The date of the Barhut sculptures is of the 2nd or 1st century B. C., or some six centuries earlier than the Nidanakatha, but that work gives the legend in almost identical terms:-Tasmin samaye Anathapindiko gahapati... Jetavanam lentisantharena atthävasa-hiraññakotihi kinitva: at the same time the householder Anathapindika having purchased the Jetavana (Jeta's park) for a layer of crores, or eighteen crores of treasure."
It will be observed that embroidery has accrued to the story in the six centuries, and that the layer of crores had become, by a clear addition, 18 crores of gold (or treasure), and also a layer of definite gold coins (kahapana, practically the modern gold mohar). Plate VII. infra shows a medallion on a pillar of the Barhut Stupa describing the scene: men are taking stamped bricks or ingots, not coins, from a bullock cart, and spreading them in the garden under mango and sandalwood trees, while Anathapindika, with a libation ewer in his hand, is making a present of the ground for the monastery.**
In translating the expressions kofi (crore), kahapana (coins), hirañña (treasure, gold), Cunningham, Hultzsch (Bharaut Inscription No. 88: ante, vol. xxi., pp. 226, 230), and the others all agree in making the purchase price "crores of gold coins," thus turning the story into, a manifestly exaggerated legend. On this point we can, however, usefully turn for the present purpose to Stein's edition of Kalhana's Rajatarangint, or Chronicles of Kashmir (A. D. 1148), in which prices are frequently stated in exact sums of dinara, an obvious derivative of the Roman denarius and used in the East for a gold coin. It has been so used by most commentators on the Rajatarangini, but so far from representing gold coins, Stein shows that dināra meant in Kashmir, firstly a coin of any kind, and secondly just money or currency.
Stein quotes a case of daily pay stated at a lakh (100,000) of dinara, sets himself to solve the question of what the Kashmir dinara really was, and shows that as a money of account it represented what is now our old friend the cash; i.e., it ran 320 to the rupee or 640 to the dollar. His instructive table (p. 36) is worth reproducing in part here.
Ancient Kashmir Currency. Designation.
Value in dinara
12
25
dvadasa (bahgani, "bargany") pantsha
sata (hath)
sahasra (sāsün) laksa (laklı)
Equivalent values in
dam rupees
1/320
1/160
1/8
1/4
1
10
1/40
1/4
25
2,500
100
1,000 100,000 10,000,000
koţi (crore)
If then we follow Stein (p. 22) and interpret the statements as to the price paid for Jetavana as meaning crores of metal currency instead of gold, then the sum of 18 crores of currency (attharasahiranñakcți) represented Rs. 2,500 by 18 Rs. 45,000 or say £2,000 of modern English money as the price of land required for monastery buildings covering 30 acres.
43 Barhut Stupa, p. 85: Also Fauaböll, Jataka, I., 92.
The story is a Buddhist favourite and appears in Hiuen Tsiang, Fa Hien, Hardy's Manual of Buddhism, eto. Barhut Stupa, loc. cit,Cunningham Mahabodhi, Pl. VIII, fig. 8, which carries the story to Asoka's time, B. C. 250. Cunningham, Coins of Ancient India, pp. 6, 7.
45 Notes on the Monetary System of Ancient Kashmir: Numismatic Chronicle, 3rd Ser. xix., pp. 125-174. Reprint p. 86. See also Stein, Kalhana's Rajalarangini, Tr., II., 308 ff.