1917.] Numismatic Supplement No. XXVIII. 65 



the actual cost of coinage (or * brassage'), at certain specified 

 rates, and paying a seigniorage of about five per cent. The 

 regulations on the subject may be found in a chapter of the 

 Ain-i Akbari, headed the * Profit of the Dealers in Gold and 

 Silver,' from which the following lines relating to the coinage of 

 copper will bear to be quoted : 



" 1044 dams buy one man of copper, i.e. at the rate of 2&d. 

 2lj. per ser. Out of this quantity one ser is burnt away in melt- 

 ing; and as each ser yields 30 dams, there are coined altogether 

 1170 dams, from which the merchant takes his capital, and 

 18d, 19i?\ as profit; 33d. 10?. go to the workmen: and 15d. Sj. 

 for necessaries (viz. 13d. 8j\ for charcoal; Id for water; and 

 Id. for clay) ; 5&ld go to the State."— Blcchmann, Ain y Tr. I, 

 p. 38. 



It is easy to understand that the wages of the workmen 

 and the cost of the "Necessaries" would not be at all affected 

 by an extraordinary rise in the price of copper. It would be 

 the profit of the merchant (about 19 dams) and the seigniorage 

 (58|d.) which would be in danger of being considerably reduced, 

 if not extinguished. 1 It is also evident that under such 

 circumstances, it would be to the interest, neither of the mer- 

 chant nor of the State, to invest capital in the coinage of 

 copper pieces of the normal weight, as neither could be expected 

 to sacrifice private advantage on the altar of public convenience. 

 The action of the Subahdar is therefore easily intelligible, and 

 we can recognise the necessity of reducing the weight of the 



coins. 



We are expressly told in the second passage from the Mirat 

 that the weight of the old Fains was 21 Mashas. We learn 



from the first that the new dam weighed only 14 Mashas. Abul 



Mashas 



20 1 Mashas, which is only I of a Masha 



Mirat. It is not 



perhaps unworthy of notice that the actual weight of two of 



1 The Mirat-i-Ahmadi tells us that the annual profit made by the 

 Ahmadabad mint was 6,174,500 dams. Part II, 122, 11. 12-13. 



Note. — The last passage quoted by Mr. Hodiwala does not hold for 

 all the mints. Heavy dams were struck at e.gr. Jahanglrnagar and 

 Shahjahanabad (?), but light dams issued from such Southern Indian 

 mints as Sholapur. It is certainly curious that we have not yet found 

 any Lahore copper coins between the reigns of Aurangzeb and 'AlamgTr 

 II. The copper coins of Jahandar and Farrukhsiyar are usually of light 

 weight, but I possess a Farrukhsiyar dam weighing 322 grains. Murad 

 I Jakhsh struck a copper coin at Surat (only 2 specimens known) weigh- 

 ing 316-333 grs. 



As regards the copper coins published by me in N.S. XV as coins of 

 Shah 'Alam Bahadur probably struck at Shahjahanabad, I am convinced 

 that they are issues of ShSh 4 Alam Bahadur, but the mint is puzzling. 

 Obviously the dies were made by a very poor artificer, 



R. B. Whitehead, I.C.S. 



