101 
1881.] H. G. Keene— On the Revenues of the Mughul Empire. 
other words the tanka of Nizam-ud-din must have been nearly the sixty- 
fourth of a rupee. 
Now it seems to me that the coins figured by Mr. Rodgers furnish an 
indication of this having been the case. His dam weighs 76 grains ; an d 
a rupee, as he tells us, is worth 6400 grains or thereabouts which is, indeed, 
about the average market value in copper. Supposing his dam to be a little 
worn it will represent exactly the half of a revenue dam (160 x 40 = 6400) 
just as the modern “ pyce” is half the tanka or “ taklca ” of native accoun¬ 
tants. Mr. Rodgers’ tanka weighs 59 (say without rubbing 60), which 
could not possibly have been the tanka , of which five went to the dd m 
(although five times half would be 150, not far from the weight of th e 
dam). 
The probability, then, is that the tanka mentioned by Nizam-ud-din 
was no real coin, but a copper integer of account used by him from some local 
or special reason, as the sixty fourth-part of the silver integer, or Rupee. 
Now this can he shewn to be otherwise reasonable. The word tankah 
is given in dictionaries to be (what it still is in native usage) the equi¬ 
valent of two paisah. There is no positive evidence as to the value of th e 
paisah of those days ; the word does not seem to have been established, in 
its modern sense, till quite recent times. But the Company struck a coi n 
(which they called “ yak pai ”) in the name of the emperor ; this coin 
weighed 100 grains. I have one in my possession which has never bee n 
rubbed; but I need not send it, as the Society can easily procure one for 
reference; and Mr. Rodgers, in his concluding note, also mentions the 
same thing. But if this was the standard of the imperial coinage, under 
whatever name, it is but natural that the “ murddi tanka ” (which is other¬ 
wise so puzzling) should have been the equivalent expression in the days of 
Akbar. The paisah of those days was the same as the dam (Blochmann’s 
Ain, p. 51.) 
In support of my belief that in point of fact the copper tanka was an 
imaginary figure sometimes used in accounting, I would refer to Mr. 
Thomas ( Chronicles , p. 49, note). It is not therefore clear on what data 
the learned author has elsewhere taken the tankah of Nizam-ud-din to be 
the Sikandari tankah. If anything is certain, it is that the use of the word 
“ murddi' 1 '' in accounts means that a sum is being expressed in copper. 
The exact words used by Nizam-ud-din are to be found in the Tabaqdt 
Akbari :— 
C cel 
H * 
“ i. e., at the present time Hindustan yields a revenue of 640 krors 
niuradi tankahs ” (v. Elliot-Doioson, p. 186). 
The suggestion that this means ten krors of rupees derives strong 
confirmation from the following passage in Mr. Thomas’s Preface ;— 
