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



ages.f To pass to the opposite extreme for a test of the copper ex- 

 change rate, it is found that when Shir Shah reorganised the northern 

 coinage of Hindustan, by the lights of his southern experience, and 

 swept away all dubious combinations of metals, reducing the copper 

 standard to its severe chemical element ; his Mint statistics show 

 that the 178 grains of silver, constituting his revised Tankah, ex- 

 changed against 40 dams, or double chitals of copper, of an ascertained 

 quadrupled weight of 323.5 grains each, producing in all a total of 

 12,940 grains of the latter metal, as the equivalent of 178 grains of 

 silver, or in the ratio of 72.69 to 1 ; though, even in the altered 

 weights and modified proportions, still retaining inherent traces of the 

 old scheme of fours, in the half dam of 80, and the quarter dam of 160 

 to the new " Rupee." 



It remains to discover upon what principles the new silver coinage of 

 Altamsh was based. That copper was the ruling standard by which 

 the relative values of the more precious metals were determined, there 

 can scarcely be a doubt. The estimate by Panas of the ancient Law- 

 giver, the constant reckoning by Chitals of the early Muhammadan 

 intruders, down to the revenue assessments of Akbar, all of which 

 were calculated in copper coin, sufficiently establish the permanency 

 of the local custom, and the intrinsic contents of Altamsh's Sikkah 

 or iLaJL)\ of 174 or 175 grains, must primarily have been regulated by 

 the silver equivalent of a given number of Chitals. Had the old silver 

 Purdna been still in vogue, the new coin might have been supposed 

 to have been based upon their weights and values ; three of which 

 Puranas would have answered to an approximate total of 96 ratis ; 

 but although the weight of the old coin had been preserved in the 

 more modern Dehli-wdlas, the metallic value of the current pieces had 

 been so reduced, that from 16 to 24 would probably have been re- 

 quired to meet the exchange against the original silver Tankah ; on 

 the other hand, although the number of 96 ratis does not occur in the 

 ancient tables, the combination of the inconvenient number of three 

 Puranas into one piece, is by no means opposed to Vedic ideas ; and 

 there can be no question but that the traditional 96 ratis, of whatever 

 origination, is constant in the modern tolah ; but, as I have said before, 

 the question whether the new coin was designed to constitute an even 

 one hundred rati -piece, which, in process of time, by wear or inten- 





