Vol. X, No. 11.] Numismatic Supplement No. XXIV 

 [N.S.] 



4ii3 



• >. V^-clSL. 



M. A. Suboor 



141. The Gujarat Mahmudi. 



I. 



In article No. 45 of No. VI of the Numismatic Supple- 

 ment, Dr. Taylor has bj 7 a process of elimination of possible 

 rivals identified the Mahmudi mentioned by certain Euro- 

 pean travellers of the early seventeenth century with the 

 coin of Gujarat Fabric described by him in article No. 14 

 of Numismatic Supplement No II. The European evidence 

 has been collected with great care and affords ample material 



tor testing the author's conclusions. 



I have never been able to 



bring 



myself to 



agree 



with 



This con 



those conclusions in their entirety, but in the absence of a 

 better theory felt bound to accept them provisionally. 



Just recently documentary evidence has come to hand, 

 which make3 it- impossible to accept the exclusive identification 

 of the Mahmudi with the coin of Gujarat Fabric, 

 sists of a passage from the Mir'at-i-AhmadI written about 

 a.h. 1170 (a .d. 1756) in the reign of 'Alamglr II , which will 

 be given later ' in extenso.' 



But first I propose to examine the article above cited and 

 to give my reasons for considering it not altogether conclusive. 



Of the three authorities quoted it is de Mandelslo to whose 

 information the greatest weight has been attached. 



The author has based his arguments largely upon the state- 

 ments (1) that the Mahmudi was a coin of inferior silver 

 and (2) that it was current only in Southern Gujarat. 



Now Terry makes no mention of the quality of the 

 silver in the Mahmudi, but Herbert says expressly that the 

 Mahmudi is of good silver. Ovington 1 , fifty years later than 



1 Ovington, Voyage to Suratt, 1689, p. 221. 



