98 



f Bengal. [N.S., XIII, 



the thirty-second year of Akbar's reign. But these considera- 

 tions do not make the same appeal to the numismatist, though 

 of course it is possible that the word tanka came into common 

 use before it made its formal appearance on the coinage. In the 

 first place, the tanka issue does not appear till the fortieth 

 year. Mu gh al coins have been collected for the last century, 

 and not a single specimen of Akbar's copper tanka issue is 

 known to me prior to the fortieth year. Again, if this tanka 

 was struck in such enormous numbers that ten millions of them 

 could be gifted to one individual, while twenty- four thousand 

 were presented to another person as ordinary coin of the realm, 

 then tankas ought to be found in large numbers at the present 

 day. This is true of the copper coin equivalent in weight and 

 size to the dam, or half tanka. Every bazar in Northern India 

 is full of SurT and Akbarl dams. But the full tanka is very 

 scarce indeed. There is only one full tanka in the Indian Mu- 

 seum collection, and there are three in the Cabinet of the 

 Lahore Museum. I myself during nine years of assiduous 

 search in the Punjab bazars have found one specimen. So we 

 are brought to one of two results. The word tanka was loosely 

 used in old chronicles for the half tanka or dam. But Mr. Hodi- 

 wala has conclusively shown that the value of this very tanka 

 as described by the historians was one-twentieth of a rupee, 

 and that it was equivalent to the double dam. This equation 

 also follows from numismatic considerations. So if the histori- 

 ans are referring to the full tanka, we are driven to the conclu- 

 sion that this tanka was almost entirely a money of account, and 

 that a few specimens were struck more as curiosities than as a 



circulating medium. 1 n c 



R. B. Whitehead, I. Co. 



26-5-16. 



182. FlRUZQARH. 



The obscure mint name Firuzgarh occurs for the first time 



Alaml. Mr. White 



--o~ _ -"— ««*»» «juc*ii ni.uii i. mil .w— — 



head says that Firuzgarh was the name of a fort in the pro- 

 vince of Bidar, west of Haidarabad (P.M.C., p. xci). His au- 

 thority is not mentioned, but it was evidently Mr. Jadunath 

 Sarkar's India of Aurangzeb (p. xcv) or rather, the Chahar 

 n " ". which includes Firozgarh or Ibrahimgarh among the 



» of the province of Bidar, the other four being Bidar 



™ ™ a J? gl £ ? ali§n and Muz affarnagar or Balkhi (ib. p. 1« 4 )- 

 Ihe Chahar Oulshan is not always an unerring guide, but in 

 this case, it may be pronounced correct so far as it goes, because 

 its statement is corroborated by a work of much higher au- 

 thority. This is the MaMr-ul- Umara—* Biographical Diction- 



Gulshan 

 five forts 



auction of n.ckel pieces the anna was a coin or not.— H. N. 



before 



