2, Sikim Copper Coins. 
By MonmMonwan CHakrAvartt, M:A.,B.L., M.R.A.S. 
I send herewith ten pice of Sikim kingdom. They are 
interesting, as being the only coins known to have been ever 
coined in that tract. 
Very little is traceable about the old currency of Sikim. 
In those days no necessity would have 
On Sodio oy been felt for coinage. Houses lay 
i scattered here and there, and the few 
huts clustering round various monasteries could hardly be called 
villages. e rents were paid in kind. Trade routes there were 
sufficed. In the old book on Sikim laws finally revised by De-si- 
sangye Gya-tsho (born in 1653 A.D.) fines in gold and silver are no 
doubt mentioned. For example, dacoits may be fined from 15 
to 80 gold srang (law No. 6), and murder punished with 10 to 
400 gold srang (law No. 9); for blood-shed the price varied 
from one to one-quarter zho (law No. 10), and on separation the 
husband should pay the wife 18 zho or more, or the wife to the 
husband 12 zho (law No. 13). These terms denoted, however, 
no coins, but certain weights, zho meaning a drachm and srang 
an ounce.! 
With the growing influence of Tibetan Lamas, a few Tibetan 
coins might have circulated among the higher classes in the 
eighteenth century ; while the Gorkha conquest of the Terai 
towards the end of that century and the subsequent colonization 
of Darjeeling and lower Sikim by Newars might have brought 
in a few Nepdlese coins. Darjeeling was ceded to British Gov- 
The Origin of these 
aon them secured from the Sikim Raj the 
lease of the tract bordering on the river. In the seventies and 
eighties of the last century, the head of these Newars, Lachh- 
midds Pradhan, cleared out the jungle and worked out with the 
help of Nepalese Mangars and Kamis certain copper mines 
! Sikhim Gazetteer, pp. 49, 50-1, 53. 
