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The different shapes are all visible in the illustration in C. A. I., from a photograph, of the early carving (B.C. 250) found at Gaya, which represents the purchase of the garden for the celebrated Jētavana monastery at Srāvasti. The small coins are few in number in that relief. In the later one at Bharhut (150 B.C.) only the larger coins, both rectangular and round, appear to be shown.

Copper, which was used in the coins, is found sparingly in Northern India, but I think is not mentioned in the Vedas. Silver certainly was known in India at that early period, the moon being described as 'Silvery' (R.V., ix, 79, 9).

Although wealth is everywhere defined in the Vedic prayers as consisting of cattle, horses, and gold, it is to be remembered that the authors of the hymns were priests who always demanded the most valuable things, and that even if there was a gold coinage of some kind there would be few gold coins to pray for. As Mr. Del Mar remarks in his History of Money, they could only be required as multiples of a coinage of lower values. The omission to mention gold coinage in the hymns is therefore not a definite proof of its non-existence.

Mr. Del Mar has pointed out that the state of society and civilisation in India in the [later] Vedic age was one that apparently necessitated the use of some kind of money; and if the reference to a gift of the value of a thousand or ten thousand pieces in the Sāma Veda (Prapathaka, iii, 10, 9) is correctly translated by Stevenson it is clear that coins were numerous in the second millennium before Christ. The extract is as follows:-O Wielder of the Thunderbolt, thou art not impoverished by a noble and surpassingly splendid gift, not by one of a thousand pieces' value, no, nor by one of ten thousand, not even, Possessor of Wealth, by such a gift a hundred times repeated.'

In the Rig Veda (Griffiths) viii, 1, 5, the words are, 'O Caster of the Stone, I would not sell thee for a mighty price, not for a thousand, Thunderer! not for ten thousand, nor a hundred, Lord of Countless Wealth.'

As in early times there was usually only one coin which

was found in great numbers in a country, it was a common practice to omit specifying any special coin, or even money, when mentioning large sums; only the number of the coins was given. Thus the pre-Christian annalists from whom the author of the first part of the Mahāvansa borrowed his historical facts stated that at the building of the so-called 'Brazen Palace' at Anuradhapura King Duṭṭha-Gāmiņi, in order to provide for the wages of the workpeople, deposited ' eight hundred thousand' at each of the four entrances. It is also recorded that in offerings at a festival at the Bō-tree he expended one hundred thousand,' and that he rewarded the architect of the Ruwanwaeli dagaba, for his lucid explanation of his design, with a suit of clothes-a Robe of Honourworth a thousand'; and other similar examples might be quoted.

Of such statements there are several instances in the Rig Veda. In Book x, 17, 9, the line occurs, 'Give food and wealth to present sacrificers, a portion, worth a thousand, of refreshment.' In x, 102, 2 we find 'Loose in the wind the woman's robe was streaming what time she won a car load worth a thousand'; and in verse 9 of the same hymn, Therewith hath Mudgala in ordered contest won for cattle for himself a hundred thousand.'

I have not searched for earlier examples. Those which I have quoted appear to be quite as unmistakable references to money as the instances from the Mahavansa. Since gold and silver money, which must have been preceded by a currency of lower value, is mentioned in the early part of the Rāmāyana as being well known (Book i, 13; ii, 32), I accept these references in the Rig Veda as clear proofs of the existence of some form of money that was in extensive use in later Vedic times.

We cannot expect ever to see many examples dating from such a far-distant period. Although, thanks to the early annalists, it is certain that numberless coins, which in some instances were stated to be termed Kahapana, were in use in Ceylon in early times, not one specimen of them had been seen twenty-seven years ago; and even now few have been

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