1.19
kukkura rahila,--sivananda duhkhi haila
dasa pana kadi diya kukkure para kaila
SYNONYMS
kukkura rahila—the dog remained; sivananda duhkhi haila—Sivananda became very unhappy; dasa pana—ten pana; kadi—small conchshells; diya—paying; kukkure—the dog; para kaila—crossed to the other side of the river.
Sivananda Sena, unhappy that the dog had to stay behind, paid the boatman ten pana of conchshells to take the dog across the river.
PURPORT
One pana is eighty kadis, or small conchshells.
Formerly, even fifty or sixty years ago, there was no paper currency in India.
Coins were generally made not of base metal but of gold, silver and copper.
In other words, the medium of exchange was really something valuable.
Four pieces of kadi made one ganda, and twenty such gandas equaled one pana.
This kadi was also used as a medium of exchange; therefore Sivananda Sena paid for the dog with dasa pana, or eighty times ten pieces of kadi.
In those days one paisa was also subdivided into small conchshells, but at the present moment the prices for commodities have gone so high that there is nothing one can get in exchange for only one paisa.
With one paisa in those days, however, one could purchase sufficient vegetables to provide for a whole family.
Even thirty years ago, vegetables were occasionally so inexpensive that one paisa’s worth could provide for a whole family for a day.