6 The Initial Coinage of Bengal. [No. 1, 



to have followed traditional weights in the contents assigned to it, as 

 the 96 rati-piece modern ideas would identify with the Tolah : or it 

 may possibly have been originated as a new 100 rati coin, a decimal 

 innovation on the primitive Hindu reckoning by fours, a point which 

 remains to be determined by the correct ascertainment of the normal 

 weight of the rati, which is still a debated question. My own results, 

 obtained from comparative Numismatic data of various ages, point to 

 1.75 grains,* while General Cunningham adheres to the higher 

 figures of 1.8229 grains.f 



* J. A. S. Bengal, 1865, p. 25, and Numismatic Chronicle. Vol iv., N. S. p. 

 131, March, 1864. 



f General Cunningham's deductions are founded on the following estimates : 

 — " I have been collecting materials for the same subject [Indian Weights] for 

 nearly twenty years, and I have made many curious discoveries. I see that Mr. 

 Thomas quotes Sir William Jones as fixing the weight of the Krishnala, or 

 Rati seed, at 1 T % grain; but I am satisfied that this is a simple misprint of 

 Jones's manuscript for 1 § or 1*833 grain, which is as nearly as possible the 

 average weight of thousands of seeds which I have tested. The great unit of 

 mediaeval and modern times is the tdka of not less than 145 grains, of which six 

 make the chha-tdka, or chhatak, equal to 870 grains, or nearly two ounces • and 

 100 make the sataka, or ser, the derivation being soA-tdka, or 100 tdkas. For 

 convenience I have taken, in all my calculations, the rati seed at 1*8229 grain. 

 Then 80 ratis or 145*832 was the weight of the tanglca of copper, and also of the 

 golden swoama, which multiplied by six gives 874.99 grains, or exactly two 

 ounces for the chha-tdka or chhatak." — J. A. S. Bengal, 1865, page 46. 



Mr. N. S. Maskelyne, of the Mineral Department, British Museum, who, some 

 time ago, entered into an elaborate series of comparisons of Oriental weights, with 

 a view to determine the identity of one of our most celebrated Indian diamonds, 

 has been so obliging as to draw up for me the following memorandum, exhibiting 

 the bearing of an entirely independent set of data upon the question under review, 

 the true weight of the Indian Rati. The value of this contribution in itself, 

 and the difficulty of doing justice to it in an abstract, must plead my excuse for 

 printing it in extenso in this place : — 



I shall confine my answer to your question about the rati to the estimate of it, 

 as derived from the Mishkal. The other channel of enquiry, that namely of 

 Hindoo metrology and numismatics, is too complicated, and so far as I have 

 been able to follow it, too unsatisfactory in its results, to justify my urging any 

 arguments derived from it. Indeed, the oscillations in the currencies, and our 

 knowing so few very fine coins of reigns before Shir Shah, of critical value, make 

 this branch of the subject almost unapproachable to one who is not an Oriental 

 scholar. I would premise, however, that I do not believe very accurate results 

 are to be obtained solely from the weights of coins, except in the few cases where, 

 as in the coins of Akbar, or of Abd-el-Malek ben Merwan, we have some literary 

 statements about them. Nor can you get any result from weighing carob beans 

 to determine the carat, or abrus seeds to determine the rati. I weighed, long 

 ago, hundreds of ratis, that Dr. Daubeny lent me, with an average of 1 .694 

 troy grains. Sir William Jones found, I believe, one of 1.318, and Professor 

 Wilson, I think, another value again. They vary according to the soil and climate 

 they are grown in, and the time and atmosphere they have been kept in. 



My investigation of the rati originated in a desire to determine whether the 

 diamond, now the Queen's, was the same that Baber records as having been 

 given to Humayun at the taking of Agra, after the battle of Paniput, and which 



