232 [No. 171. 



The Coins of Arakan : — The Historical Coins, by Capt. A. P. Phayre, 

 Principal Asst. Commr. Arakan. 



The art of coining appears to have been introduced among the Ara- 

 kanese only at a very late period. Their oldest legendary coins were 

 suggested to them by the coined money of the Mahumudan sovereigns 

 of Bengal. I say their legendary coins, since it is probable that a medal 

 similar to that described, and so happily explained by Lieut. Latter 

 (in the Jour. As. Soc. Vol. XIII. p. 571) was struck in Arakan at a 

 period much earlier than were the coins now to be noticed. It is indeed 

 certain, that to coin money is a but lately known art among the Bur- 

 mese race. The term in their language for coin, — ding-ga, — seems not to 

 be a native word, but adopted from the Hindooee, tu-ka. In the domi- 

 nions of Ava, coined money is still unknown ; payments are made by 

 silver ingots weighed out as required. 



The Arakanese sovereigns no doubt wished to follow the kingly prac- 

 tice existing in Bengal, of coins being struck in the name of the reign- 

 ing monarch. We learn from their annals that about the middle of the 

 fifteenth century of the Christian era, they conquered Bengal as far as 

 Chittagong, of which they kept possession for about a century. It was 

 then, that they first struck legendary coins. On the obverse of the earliest 

 of these, we find the date and the king's names written in the Burmese 

 character, together with barbarous attempts at Mahumudan names and 

 titles ; these they assumed as being successors of Mussulman kings, or as 

 being anxious to imitate the prevailing fashion of India. Indeed, there is 

 some reason to believe that Ba-tsau-phyu, a Buddhist king like the rest, 

 who ascended the throne A. D. 1459, obtained among his own subjects 

 the epithet kalamashd, (the son of the Kalama) from having issued a 

 coin with the Mahumudan kulima inscribed upon it. The reverse of 

 most of the earlier coins, contains unintelligible Persian and Nagri in- 

 criptions. The Arakanese kings were frequently known to their subjects 

 by names and titles different from those which appear on their coins. 

 This circumstance will explain a discrepancy observable between the coin- 

 names of kings given here, and the sovereigns of the same period found 

 in the list of Arakanese kings, published in the Society's Jour. Vol. XIII. 

 page 50. The coin-date generally coincides with the year of the king's 



