CHAPTER V. The Art of Weighing was first employed for Gold.

received from Divodāsa. Ten chariots equipped with side-horses, and an hundred cows gave Açvatha to the Atharvans and the Pāyu” (Mandala, VI. 49, 23-4). As we shall have occasion later on to deal with the terms manâ and hiranya-pinda at greater length, it will suffice our present purpose to point out that we have a distinct mention of a weight of gold in the expression manâ hiranyayâ. In only these two passages have we any allusion to weighing, and in both it is in direct connection with gold. The Aryans of the Veda are beyond all doubt in a far less civilized state than the Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks or Romans of the historical period. Hence we may without danger infer that they did not use weight for any cereals they may have cultivated. Therefore we may, with a good deal of probability, conclude that we have got a people who had already a knowledge of the art of weighing before they were acquainted with either silver or iron, and that this people used the scales for gold and nothing else. This, taken in connection with the fact that in Homer, although silver is known, the weighing of metals is confined to gold, leads us irresistibly to conclude that gold was the first of all substances to be weighed, or, to put it in a different way, the art of weighing was invented for gold.