CHAP. V.] 



MANUFACTURES. 



463 



shown to be not Singhalese or Sanskrit, but Persian, 

 and the tokens themselves have been proved to be- 

 long to Laristan on the Persian Gulf, 

 from the chief emporium of which, Gam- 

 broon, they were brought to Ceylon in 

 the course of Indian commerce ; chiefly 

 by the Portuguese, who are stated by 

 VAN CAKDAEN to have introduced them 

 in great quantities into Cochin and the 

 ports of Malabar. 1 There they were 

 circulated so freely that an edict of Pra- 

 krama enumerates the ridi amongst the coins in which 

 the taxes were assessed on land. 2 



In India they are called larins, and money in imita- 

 tion of them, struck by the princes of Bijapur and by 

 Sivaji, the founder of the Mahrattas, was in circulation 

 in the Dekkan as late as the seventeenth century. 3 



JOOK MONEY. 



1 " Les larins sont tout-a-fait com- 

 modes et ne"cessaires dans les Indes, 

 surtout poiir acheter du poivre a 

 Cochin, ou Ton en fait grand etat." 

 Voyage aux Indes Orientates. Am- 

 sterdam, A.D. 1716, vol. vi. p.' 626. 



2 Hock-inscription at Dambool, 



A.D. 1200. The Rajavali mentions 

 the ridis as in circulation in Ceylon 

 at the period of the arrival of the 

 Portuguese, A.D. 1505. P. 278. 



3 Prof. WILSON'S Remarks on Fish- 

 hook Money, Nmmsm. Chronic. 1854, 

 p. 181. 



