1880.] 



C. J. RodgerfS — Copper Coins of Alchcir. 



217 



object to be had in view is a complete series of coins of all the Sultans 

 whether Pathan or Mogul, and of the Maharajahs and Rajahs. Another 

 object should be series of local mints. Thus Lahore, from the time of 

 Mahmiid of Gazni to that of the latter Moguls, was a very famous mint 

 town. But in the museum of that city no attempt has been made to 

 secure complete series of Lahore coins. Those of the early Moguls are of 

 great beauty and deserve to be gathered. The large mohurs and square 

 rupees of Jahangir struck at Lahore are most especially worthy of notice. 

 Of course the price of such coins would amount to a large sum. But if a 

 museum is worthy of being kept up, surely the things in it should be worth 

 looking at. Tlie coins in the Lahore Museum are now being catalogued, 

 and when the catalogue is issued, the deficiencies and redundancies of the 

 collection will be seen at once. It is to be hoped that when the deficien- 

 cies are made manifest, some attempt will be made to make them good. 



For coins Nos. 1 and 3, I am indebted to Dav. Koss, Esq., Traffic 

 Manager, Scinde, Punjab and Dehli Railways for permission to make copies 

 of them. For permission to draw No. 28, I am indebted to Mr. Ibbettson, 

 C. S. of Kurnal. 



With respect to ihefahU coins I may add that these are probably the 

 the coins of which Bernier says that Aurungzib had bags of 1000 peyssas 

 ready for distribution. In a loose fashion the term dam seems also to have 

 been given to tlie large fulus pieces. And genei-ally we see that with re- 

 spect to Akbar's copper coins there was a want of definiteness which pre- 

 cludes the possibility of arriving at exactness with respect to his revenues. 

 For we must always remember that copper was the standard of value in 

 Akbar's time. 



Nole. — There is some confusion in the names of the copper coinage of the East India 

 Company. Accounts are kept in rupees, annas and pies. There are 12 pies to an 

 anna. But on the quarter anna we have in Persian distinctly C5 one pie. Ac- 



cording to this therefore there are only foiu- pies in an anna. The coin we call a 

 pie has on it in Persian c?^:} ?Mh P"h the third part of a pie. If the accounts 



of the Company had heen kept in pics only, there would have been tremendous con- 

 fusion until the value of the pie had heen fixed. 



The modern pice weighs about 100 grains. Hence a rupee is worth about 6100 

 grains. If a dam weighed 320 grains and a rupee were worth forty dams then in 

 Akbar's time a rupee represented 12,800 grains. But if also the ddm weighed 80 grains 

 only, and there were 160 of them, the same result is arrived at. Now nearly the same 

 result is arrived at with reckoning the rupee to be worth 200 tankes at 60 grains each. 



If the relative values of silver and copper were the same in Akbar's time as now, 

 then taking our coins the tdiiJce and ddm at GO and 80 grains we have 106 and 80 to 

 the rupee respectively. Taking these values, which are probably the correct ones, the 

 revenues of Akbar according to Nizam-uddui and Abul Fazl are $6,000,000 and 

 £7,095000 respectively. 



