1917.] Numismatic Supplement No. XXVIII. 85 



of Hindu Tales entitled by him Bahru-l- Asmar — M Ocean of 

 Stories''— [Katha Sarit Sagaral], and that when he laid his 

 version at the feet of his Imperial patron, Akbar was highly 

 pleased, and ordered him to correct and modernise an older 

 rendering of the first part also, which had been made in the 

 time of Sultan Zain-al-'Abidin of Kashmir. 



Bibl. Ind. Text, II, 402, 11. 5-6. Lucknow Lithograph, 276, 



11. 1-2. 



11 1 began it and after [giving me] many marks of favour, 

 he gave me a present of ten thousand Murddi ta?ikas, and a 



horse. 



Here again Lowe has rendered the word Muradi by "in 



small change." (II, 416). 



Let me now sum up the results of this inquiry. Not reckon- 

 ing the passage cited by Thomas, which was hitherto the only 

 one known, there are at least three other passages in each of 

 these authors, in which the Muradi tanka is explicitly men- 

 tioned. Two of these passages are found in both, Nizamu-d-din 

 and Badaoni, and relate to the 32nd and the 38th Regnal years. 

 But each has one passage to which there is no parallel in the 

 other. That which is earliest in point of time occurs only in 

 the Tabaqat (R.Y. XXV). That which is latest in point of time 

 is found only in the Muntakhab (R.Y. XL) of Badaoni. 



We may take it then that these passages indicate that a 

 tanka which bore, for some reason, the peculiar designation 

 of Tanka-i-MuradI, was current in Akbar's reign from the 

 twenty-fifth to the fortieth year. It does not appear to ha v. 

 been merely a money of account; for Badaoni explicitly uses 

 the words '* One crore Muradi tankas (Naqd), i.e. in cash," and 

 ays that he himself received ten thousand of them from the 

 hands of the Emperor. Here it may be useful to quote the 

 note of Lowe's on the expression which he has rendered by the 

 phrase, i( in small change." " It was the custom to keep bags 

 of 1000 dam at hand ready for distribution " (II, 402, n. 8) and 

 he quotes as his authority, Thomas's Chronicles, p. 421, n.l, 

 where we read: " Abul Fazl relates that a kror of dams was 

 kept ready for gifts within the palace, ■ every thousand of 

 which was kept in bags.' Bernier mentions the continuation, 

 even to Aurangzeb's time, of the same custom of having bags 

 of 1,000 dams ready for distribution/' (Chronicles,, p. 421, 



n. 2). 



The language of Nizamud-din also scarcely supports, if it 



does not actually militate against, the supposition that the 



Muradi tanka was merely a money of account. He tells us that 



