345 
1873.] E. Thomas —The Initial Coinage of Bengal. — Ft. II. 
tradition, defined the niarli at 5 mash as' weight f while Dr. Hunter, under 
later and more vague native inspiration, pronounces it to he } of a Jcarisha , 
which measure may be assumed to represent the local pronunciation of the 
old widely-spread karsha of Manu, corresponding with the normal weight 
of the gold suvarna, i. e. 80 ratis .f Taking the rati at 1*75 grains, this 
will make Mr. Stirling’s return amount to 43'75 grains (5 X 5 = 25 ; 
25 X 1*75 = 43 - 75) per mark; whereas Dr. Hunter’s estimate, under the 
same figures, would only produce 35 grains (140 -r- 4 = 35) ; but, as he 
assumes the modern Jcarisha to be equal to “ one TolaJi or one Rupee” of 
our modern system,—the amount of which however he does not further 
define^,—and taking the 180 grain total as the test,§ the result is not far 
removed from Mr. Stirling’s earlier estimate under the old regime;—- 
producing, in effect, a return of 45 grains for the marh (180 -f- 4 — 45). 
But, singular to say, if we revert to the more ancient standard of the 
* Asiatic Researches, xv., 271. Mr. Stirling, however, seemed to imagine that the 
sum named for the total revenues, as tested, by this estimate, was too high;, hut later 
investigations fully support the reasonable measure of the king’s boast. 
f J.R.A.S., II., pp. 169, 170. Chronicles of the Pathan Kings, p. 221. 
% “ Orissa,” a continuation of the “ Annals of Rural Bengal,” (London, Smith and 
Elder, 1872) i., pp. 316, 317. Dr. Hunter, like myself, has endeavoured to make his 
antiquarian researches instructive in their application to the defects of our own government 
in India, consequent upon the too frequent disregard of the superior local knowledge and 
hereditary instincts of the races we are appointed to rule over. 
After enumerating the ascertained totals of the revenue of the province at various 
periods, the author goes on to say, “ Prom time immemorial Orissa, like some other parts 
of India, has used a local currency of cowries. When the province passed into our hands 
in 1803, the public accounts were kept and the revenue was paid in these little shells.” 
We “however stipulated that tbe landholders should henceforth pay their land-tax in 
silver, and fixed the rate of exchange at 5120 cowries to the rupee.” (In 1804, the official 
exchange was 5120, and the practical rate of exchange from 6160 to 7680.) .... 
“ Had our first administrators contented themselves with taking payment in silver at the 
current rate of the cowrie exchange, the Orissa land-tax would now have been double what 
it is at present. But had they resolved to collect it at a grain valuation, according to 
Akbar’s wise policy, it would now be more than double; for tlie prices of food have rather 
more than doubled since 1804. The system of paying the land-tax by a grain valuation 
appears to me to be the best means of giving stability to the Indian revenues.”—Orissa, 
ii., 172. Dr. Hunter had not seen my notice of “ The Revenues of the Mughal Empire” 
(Trubner, 1872) when this was written. 1 had equally appreciated the equity and 
suitableness of the system of estimate by agricultural produce, which had come down to 
Akbar’s time from the earliest dawn of the civilization of the nation at large ; but I had 
to condemn Akbar for introducing a new element in the shape of a settlement to he paid 
in silver, on the average of the prices of previous years—an assessment he hoped, in 
defiance of the proverbial uncertainty of Indian seasons, to make immutable; furnishing, 
in effect, the leading idea we so unwisely followed in that deplorable measure, Lord 
Cornwallis’s “ Permanent Settlement of Bengal.” 
§ Prinsep’s Essays, U.T., p. 7. 
