26 Ancient Indian Weights. [No. 1, 



Tughlak, in a.d. 1325,* this integer was revived in the form of silver 

 coin, and was further retained as a mint standard by his successors, 

 till Shir Shah remodelled the currency about the middle of the 

 sixteenth century. In the same way I have already demonstrated 

 elsewhere,f in illustration of an independent question, that a coin retain- 

 ing with singular fidelity the ponderable ratio of the ancient purdna, 

 was concurrent with the restored kdrsha under Feroz Shah (a.d. 1351 — 

 1388) and other kings. And to complete the intermediate link, I 

 may cite the fact that when the effects of Greek and Scythian inter- 

 ference had passed away, the 32-rati Purdna reappeared in the Punjab 

 and Northern India, as the silver currency of the local dynasty of 

 Sya'la and Samanta Deva,| and furnished in its style and devices the 

 prototype of the Dehli Choha'n series of " Bull and Horseman" coins, 

 the Dilliwdlas, which were retained, unaltered in wieght, by the 

 Muhammedans, in joint circulation with the silver double Dirhams of 

 174 grains, of their own system. § 



Extant specimens of Syala's coins in the British Museum weigh 

 54 .4 g ra i ns and upwards. 



If this double series of weights, extending over an interval of time 

 represented by 24 or 25 centuries, and narrowed to an almost identical 

 locality, are found not only to accord with exactitude in themselves, 

 but to approach the only rational solution of the given quantities, the 

 case may be taken as proved. 



The ancient purdna hall-marked silver pieces range as high as 

 55 grains; copper coins of Rdmadata\\ are extant of 137.5 grains; and 

 other early coins of about 70 grains ; while, in parallel exemplification, 

 the later standard weights, under the Muhammedans at Dehli, are 

 found to be 56 and 140 grains. Hence — 



140-4-80 ratis = 175 grains. 

 56^-32 „ =1-75 „ 



* " Coins of the Patan Saltans of Hindustan," Num. Chron., 1847, coin No 

 87, and vol. xv., No. 24, page 130. 



f Num. Chron., xv., notes, pp. 138, 153, &c. In the minor subdivisions, the 

 34 5 and 17 - 4 of coins Nos. lix. and lx., p. 155, singularly accord with the weight 

 required for the 5 and § kdrsha. 



% J. A. S. Bengal, iv. 674; J. R. A. S., ix. 177; Ariana Antiqua, p. 428; 

 Prinsep's Essays, i. 313. 



§ N. C, xv. 136 ; Prinsep's Essays, U. T., p. 70. 



|| Prinsep's " Essays," i. p. 216, pi. xx., figs. 47, 48. 



