86 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XIII, 



Nazar Bey actually received 24,000 of these Muradi tankds, 

 along with 100 ashrafis and 1,500 rupees, neither of which last 

 could possibly come under that description. It is more likely 

 that the Emperor, for some reason connected with the court 

 etiquette relating to the entertainment of envoys and other 

 visitors from foreign parts, furnished him with a reasonable 

 quantity of the currency of the realm, in all the three metals. 1 

 The total amount of the gift would be about 3,700 ^rupees 

 taking the ashrafi at 10 rupees, and the Muradi tankd at J n 

 of a rupee. If the object had been merely to give the ambas- 

 sador a certain sum as douceur, or if the Muradi tankd had 

 been merely an accountant's fiction, he would have given him 

 only 370 ashrafis, or only 3,700 rupees. It seems that a few 

 of those bags filled with coppers, which " were kept ready for 

 distribution, 5 ' were included in the Imperial gift, with the 

 object of obviating any difficulties which the stranger might 

 possibly experience in the exchange transactions incidental to 

 everyday existence, which appear to have been conducted for 

 the most part in copper in those times. It is perhaps permis- 

 sible also to conjecture that these Muradi tankds were specially 

 included on this occasion, because they had been then but re- 

 cently coined and placed in circulation. 



But supposing the Muradi tankd was a money of account 

 only, what was its value? For this we have the equation- 

 Four lakhs of Tankd-i- Muradi =* five hundred Tumans of Iraq. 

 But what was the value of the Tuman of Iraq ? Abul Fazl ia 

 explicit on that point :— "The Tuman of Khurasan/' he says, 

 "is equal in value to 30 rupees, and the Tuman of 'Iraq to 

 40." (Ain-i-Akbari, Tr. Jarrett, II, 394). But if 40 rupees are 

 equal to one Tuman of 'Iraq, and if four lakhs of Muradi tavkds 

 are equal to five hundred Tumans of l Irdq, it follows that 



' It appears to have been the practice to present to ambassadors 

 and distinguished visitors from foreign parts on their arrival or departure 

 or both, various sums of money for, as it is often expressly said, their 

 expenses. Thus, Jahangir gave the envoy of the Sharif of Mekka five 

 lacs of DSms in the second year of his reign (Tuzuk, Tr. Rogers and 

 Beveridge, I. 133). In the tenth year, he bestowed twenty- thousand 

 Darbs (half-rupees) on Mustafa Beg, the Persian ambassador. (Ibid... L 

 i84). Muhammad Riza, another envoy of the ruler of Erin, received in 

 the twelfth year sixty thousand Darbs. (lb., I. 374). The Wakila of 



Add Khan of Bijapur and Qutb-ul-Mulk of Gulkandah also are stated to 



and 



exam 



/t oar o«n - tt Z> *r e aame Practice occur elsewhere in the same work 

 (I 206, 296 ; II. 36, 75, 90, 94, 97, 165, 236). It would be easv to quote 

 addit.onal passages from the Badshah-namah and the histories of Au- 

 rangzeb, but it is scarcely necessary to do so. A study of all the passages 

 seems to show that whereas Akbar's presents were generally made in 

 these Tanka-i- Muradi , JahSngir preferred to give Darbs, and Shah JahSn 

 and Aurangzeb Rupees. — 



