oct. — dec. 1856.] Notes on Indian Currencies, 43 



" marks of favor — silver coin, of several hundred rupees value 

 " were also in use ; and there is one of them now in the British 

 " Museum, of which the ingenious Mr. Richardson has given a 

 " very full description in his very learned work, the ' Persian and 

 " Arabic Dictionary.' " 



Elphinstone* in his history, alludes very cursorily to the ancient 

 coinage of India and merely tells us, " that the first princes used 

 " dinars and dirhems like the Caliphs, these were succeeded by 

 " tankhas divided into dams and jitals— Shir Shahf changed the 

 " name of tankha to that of rupeia, or rupee, which was adopted 

 " by Akbar, and the latter prince fixed the weight and relative va- 



_ lue of money on a scale which remained unaltered 

 1761 A. D. 3 



" till the dissolution of the Mogul empire, (1761 A. 



" D.) and is the basis of that now in use." In a note he adds, " the 



" Dinar under the Caliphs was about equal to 10s. Sd. In Ibn 



" Batuta'sj time a western dinar was to an eastern dinar as 4 to 1 



" and an eastern dinar T \ of a tankha, which even supposing a 



" tankha of that day to be equal to a rupee of Akbar, would be 



" only 2^d. The tankha is said by Ferishta to have been in Ala u 



" Dins time (1295 A. D ) equal to 50 jitals, and in Mohammed 



" Toglak's time (1325 A. D.) it was so debased as to be worth no 



" more than 16 peisas." 



" The rupee§ of Akbar contained 174.5 grains of pure silver 

 " and was divided into 40 dams or peisas (of 191 J grs. of copper 

 " each). The dam was divided into 25 jitals (probably a nominal 

 " coin). Queen Elizabeth's shilling contained 88.8 grs. of pure 

 " silver— Akbar' s rupee therefore was worth Is. lljJ. of English 

 " money of his time." 



Having thus traced the various denominations of coins from 

 very early times down to a more modern date with such explana- 

 tions of their values and kinds annexed as are afforded by cotem- 



* Page 429. 



f Lived 1540 A. D.-947 A. H. 



X Who wrote nearly 2 centuries before Baber, that is, about A. D. 1300. 

 § Weighed 187.5. 



