1917.1 Numismatic Supplement No. XXVI I L 87 



800 Muradi tankas = one Tuman of 'Iraq = 40 Rupees 



(Akbari), and that 

 20 Muradi tankas = one rupee (Akbari). 



In other words, 1 Muradi tankd = 2 dams, taking the dam at 

 ^ of the Akbari rupee. Of course, all this depends upon the 

 correctness of Abul FazPs equation — 1 Tuman of 'Iraq = 40 

 Rupees ; and it is possible to argue that Nizamud-din's Tu- 

 man of 'Iraq may not have been at all identical with that of 

 Abul Fazl, and may have been worth less or more. Fortu- 

 nately, however, it is possible to show decisively that it was 

 worth neither more or less than 40 rupees. Nizamu-d-din him- 

 self gives the identical equation in an indirect manner, in not 

 one but two passages, which I shall content myself with quot- 

 ing from Dowson's translation : 



11 The debts of Shaikh Mohammed Bukhari, who was killed 

 at the battle of Pattan, and of Saif Khan Koka, who fell in the 

 second campaign of Ahmadabad, were ordered to be paid out 



of the public treasury. 



/ 



shahi rupees, equal to two thousand five hundred Tumans of 'Iraq. 

 (E.D. V. 370-1). It is obvious from this that 40 A kbarshahi 

 rupees = 1 Tuman of 'Iraq. Elsewhere he says : 



"Nearly a lac and a half of rupees, equal to three thou- 

 sand seven hundred Tumans of 'Iraq, goods of Hindustan and 

 curiosities, were entrusted to Muhammad 'Ali Khazanchi for 

 presentation to 'Abdullah Khan." (E.D. V. 455). 



Now, 3,700 Tumans of 'Iraq at 40 rupees to the Tuman 

 would be equal to only 1,48,000 rupees, and it is thus easy to 

 see why the scrupulously exact quarter-master-general and 

 accountant qualifies the expression, "a lac and a half of 

 rupees" with the adverb "nearly" (Qarib-i-yak-nim lak 

 rupiyah). Lucknow Lithograph, p. 371, 1.9.' 



1 It is perhaps not unnecessary to add that we have nothing to do 

 here with the various estimates of the value of the Tuman in European 

 monev which are to be found in the works of English, French and Italian 

 travellers of the seventeenth century. What we are concerned with is 

 not, what any one of them understood by the word, but what the author 

 of the Tabaqat believed the " Tuman of 'Iraq" to be valued at. Nizamu- 

 d-din's own declaration on that head must therefore be absolutely deri- 

 ve, even if we did not possess the exceedingly valuable corroborativ 

 testimony of his contemporary Abul Fazl. The Tuman appears to have 

 been at this time merely a money of account and to have varied also 

 from place to place (Qandahar, Khurasan, Iraq, etc.). It seems also, 

 like several other denominations of money, to have run an almost un- 

 interrupted course of depreciation with the lapse of time. Pietro della 

 Valle's (1619 a.c.) estimate makes it equivalent to £4 10s. (Travels, II. 22). 

 Mandelslo says it was equal to 5 Pistoles, i.e. about £4 3s. 9d. Tavernier 

 in his Persian Travels (ed. 1670, p. 122) takes it to be as 15 6cus, which 

 at 4s 6d. the ecu ss £3 Is. 6d. Elsewhere he declares it was equal to 50 

 Xbasis, i.e. about £3 las. (Ball's edition, I. 24). Sir Thomas Herbert says 

 the ' Toman is fiv. marks sterlin' (Travels, p. 225), which, at 13s. 4d. the 

 .nark, would he = £3 6s. M. Fryer (1677 a.c.) estimates "every Tho- 



