166 Shells as evidence of the Migrations. 
again (p. 90) in speaking of the standard of money 
in India from Alexander the Great to the Mahommedan 
Conquest, he says: “In Northern India the copper pieces 
were supplemented by gold and _ silver multipliers, in 
Southern India by dividers of cowrie-shells.” In the 
Manikyala tope in the Punjab, opened in 1830, “ were 
found mingled together cowrie shells, gold coins of the 
Kadphises and Kanerkes, Roman consular coins shortly 
before the Christian era, and copper coins of the Sassanian 
line.” Cowries formed the bulk of the currency between 
the beginning of the Christian era and the Mahommedan 
dynasty of A.D. 1203.'" In Bengal the system of a copper 
standard with cowry dividers and gold and silver multi- 
pliers remained unchanged after the Mahommedan Con- 
quest. Ibn Batiita,the Arabian traveller of the 14th century, 
gives an account of the collection of the cowry-shells in 
the Maldive islands, from whence they were exported to 
Bengal in exchange for rice. He states that a dustus 
equalled a /aé of cowries, and four /a/’s, or four dustus, were 
estimated as worth one gold dinar, but the rate ofexchange 
was so variable that occasionally a dinar would purchase 
as many as twelve /aks of cowries."* 
In Orissa, the next kingdom south of Bengal, accounts 
were kept in cowries, and the following scale of values 
prevailed during the early part of the Mahommedan rule : 
4 cowries=1 gunda; § gundas=1 boory; 4 boories=1 
pun ; 16—20 puns=1 khawun ; 10 khawuns=1 rupee. In 
1740, a rupee exchanged for 2,400 cowries; in 1756, for 
'® Marsden, ‘* Numismata Orientalia,” edited by Edward Thomas, 
London, 1874, quoted by Del Mar, of. ct#., p. 86 footnote, 
127 Marsden, of. c#t., p. 37; Del Mar, of. c#Z., p. 90 footnote. 
'2* Del Mar, of. c7., p. 99; Edward Thomas, ‘‘ The Chronicles of 
the Pathan Kings of Delhi,” London, 1871, p. 110 footnote. In Lee's 
translation of *‘Ibn Batita’’ (London, 1829, pp. 179 & 181) the cowry 
(Wada) is referred to as alms-gifts and as currency in the Maldives, 
