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Chapter 9
8th Century Documents on Means of Earning Money
PREM SUMAN JAIN
In ancient India though the chief source of Earning money was the buying and selling of goods, yet many other ways, right or wrong, were employed to earn it. Some of these means, which yielded good and quick returns, were ignoble, others, which were considered noble, yielded limited returns. Uddyotanasuri has mentioned both these types of means in his work Kuvalayamalakaha (779 A.D.)."
Ignoble Means
When Mayaditya and Sthanu thought of earning money, the question was how to earn it. Without money Dharma and Kama cannot be achieved. Then Mayaditya suggested 'Friend, it is so, let us move on to Varanasi. There we shall gamble, break into the houses, snatch the ear-rings, loot the passengers, pick the pockets, indulge in jugglery and cheat the people. In other words we would do everything by which we can earn money. Sthanu was sorry to hear all this and he dubbed these means as ignoble as they were against gentlemanliness Hoe Mahanto doso (57.23).
Besides these means, earning money by selling creatures and animals was also regarded as ignoble in this work.“ The above means of earning money were
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