1865.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 211 



was ever carried out in its integrity. Some of the gold coins, I am 

 confident, were simply medals which never came into general circula- 

 tion. Akber's new system of weights and measures was not very 

 successful as a measure for the Empire, and I see no reason to 

 suppose that his system of coins and currency was much more so. In 

 those days, the limits of the Capital and the chief cities, such as 

 Dehli, Lahore, Futtehpur, &c. comprised, for the purposes of regula- 

 tions, a large portion of the Empire ; and it would not be inconsistent 

 with possibility, that the value of gold in relation to silver in the 

 Capital, where the treasures gathered by successive conquests were 

 congested, should be as 1 to 9, while it was half as much again 

 in other parts of India, should the monarch on the throne have 

 chosen to melt up his millions of gold and issue gold coins at 

 that rate. Had Mr. Thomas then confined himself to the record 

 of Abul Fazl, I should have had little to say further than I have 

 already said, viz. that I mistrust the record ; but he now goes 

 further, and states that he is prepared to contend that the value of 

 gold as compared with silver in the open market, in the time of Akbar, 

 was much less than 1 to 9 ; that it was 1 to 8 ; and that it had been 

 even less than that. In proof of this assertion he quotes again Abul 

 Fazl, who states that half a tola of refined gold was worth only Rs. 4, 

 which would about give the required ratio. But I cannot follow the 

 learned numismatist here, for if this statement will serve any purpose, 

 it appears to me that it will serve to undermine the basis on which 

 the whole of his argument rests. He says that the market rate in 

 Akbar 's time was as I to 9.4 ; and that Akbar's desire was to " adjust 

 the exchange to ten ;" but if the merchant valued half a tola of his 

 gold as equal in value to Rs. 4, or in other words, if a tola was worth 

 Rs. 8 in the open market — the rupee, according to Abul Fazl, being 

 11 J maslias in weight and the tola twelve mashas — the rate would be 

 J tola or 6 mashas equal to Rs. 4 or 46 mashas, i. e. 1 to 7f . To prove 

 this, it appears to me, would be to prove too much ; for if the market rate 

 was so low, I question the power of even the great Emperor to make 

 the people pay so high as 9.4 of silver for 1 of gold. He could not 

 have been ignorant of the futile endeavours of his predecessor Ala- 

 ud-deen to obtain currency for his copper tanks, and to pass them off 

 as equally valuable with gold and silver, and the disastrous results 



