1867.] The Initial Coinage oj Bengal. 13 



sorted to the extreme measure of a forced currency, thougli it may be 

 doubted whether any such depreciation would have been thought of, 

 even if there had been time to effect the conversion, at the very com- 

 mencement of his reign, to which period Nizam-ud-din attributes the 

 issue of these pieces, in the apparent desire of explaining the bare 

 possibility of the possession of such numerical amounts as are stated to 

 have been squandered in largesses by the newly-enthroned monarch. 

 However, the real debasement of the coin need not have extended much 

 beyond the point indicated by the superficial aspect of his own Bengal 

 mintages, and Azam Shah's coins of the same locality probably exceed 

 that accusatory measure of debasement ; while, on the other hand, 

 Muhammad bin Tughlak, on reverting to specie currencies, after his 

 futile trial of copper tokens, seems to have aimed at a restoration of 

 the ancient purity of metal in his metropolitan issues, as I can quote 

 a coin of his produced by the Dehli Mint in a. h. 734, which has 

 every outward appearance of the component elements of unalloyed 

 silver, and equally retains the fair average weight of 168 grains.* 

 All these evidences would seem to imply that the Bengal ratio of 

 purity was intentionally lower, and that a very slight addition to the 

 recognised alloy would bring the local issues fairly within the cate- 

 gory of black Tankahs. Such a supposition of the inferiority of the 

 coinages of the southern kingdom appears to be curiously illustrated 

 by Baber's mentioning that, in a. ii. 932, a portion of the revenues of 

 the district of Tirhut, a sort of border-land of his kingdom, which did 

 not extend over Bengal, was payable in Tankah Nukrah, and the 

 larger remainder in Tankah Sidh } f an exceptional association of cur- 



* This coin is similar, but not identical in its legends with the gold piece^ 

 No. 84, of 736 a. h., p. 50 Pathan Sultans. The following are the inscriptions : 



Obverse— |yiAJ| Ju| j ^sjJl &Xi\j 



Reverse — (jJ->o ^&+s.'° iXg.£ ^ 

 Margin — iL>U*.x*oj ^^ J £}j\ &-W|*3L»Vl j\^i' 

 f Baber has left an interesting account of the revenues of his newly-acquired 

 kingdom in India, as estimated after the battle of Panipat, in A. H. 932, to the 

 effect that " the countries from Bhira to Bahar which are now under my domi- 

 nion yield a revenue of 52 krores " of Tankahs. In the detail of the returns 

 from different provinces, Tirhut is noticed as Tribute (Khidmatana) of the 

 Tirhuti Rajah 250,000 tankah nuhrah, and 2,750,000 tanlcah sidh. William 

 Erskine, History of India under Baber and Humayun, London, 1854, vol. i., p. 

 540. See also Leyden's Memoirs of Baber, London, 1826, p. 334. 



