sorted to the extreme measure of a forced currency, though it may be doubted whether any such depreciation would have been thought of, even if there had been time to effect the conversion, at the very commencement of his reign, to which period Nizám-ud-din attributes the issue of these pieces, in the apparent desire of explaining the bare possibility of the possession of such numerical amounts as are stated to have been squandered in largesses by the newly-enthroned monarch. However, the real debasement of the coin need not have extended much beyond the point indicated by the superficial aspect of his own Bengal mintages, and Azam Shah's coins of the same locality probably exceed that accusatory measure of debasement; while, on the other hand, Muhammad bin Tughlak, on reverting to specie currencies, after his futile trial of copper tokens, seems to have aimed at a restoration of the ancient purity of metal in his metropolitan issues, as I can quote a coin of his produced by the Dehli Mint in A. H. 734, which has every outward appearance of the component elements of unalloyed silver, and equally retains the fair average weight of 168 grains.* All these evidences would seem to imply that the Bengal ratio of purity was intentionally lower, and that a very slight addition to the recognised alloy would bring the local issues fairly within the category of black Tankahs. Such a supposition of the inferiority of the coinages of the southern kingdom appears to be curiously illustrated by Báber's mentioning that, in A. H. 932, a portion of the revenues of the district of Tirhút, a sort of border-land of his kingdom, which did not extend over Bengal, was payable in Tankah Nukrah, and the larger remainder in Tankah Síáh,† an exceptional association of cur This coin is similar, but not identical in its legends with the gold piece, No. 84, of 736 A. H., p. 50 Pathán Sultáns. The following are the inscriptions: والله الغني و انتم الفقرا Obverse في عهد محمد بن تغلق Reverse بدار الاسلام سنة اربع وثلثين وسبعماية -Margin + Báber has left an interesting account of the revenues of his newly-acquired kingdom in India, as estimated after the battle of Panipat, in A. H. 932, to the effect that "the countries from Bhíra to Bahár which are now under my dominion yield a revenue of 52 krores' of Tankahs. In the detail of the returns from different provinces, Tirhút is noticed as Tribute (Khidmatána) of the Tirhúti Rajah 250,000 tankah núkrah, and 2,750,000 tankah siáh. William Erskine, History of India under Báber and Humáyun, London, 1854, vol. i., p. 540. See also Leyden's Memoirs of Báber, London, 1826, p. 334. rencies in a given locality, which can scarcely be explained in a more simple and reasonable manner than by assuming the lower description of the conventional estimate piece to have been concurrent with a better description of the same coin, constituting the prevailing and authorized revenue standard of the northern portions of the conquering Moghul's Indian dominions. Another important element of all currency questions is the relative rate of exchange of the precious metals inter se. And this is a divi. sion of the enquiry of peculiar significance at the present moment, when Her Majesty's Government are under pressure by the European interest to introduce gold as a legal tender at a fixed and permanent rate, or, in effect, to supersede the existing silver standard, the single and incontestable measure of value, in which all modern obligations have been contracted, and a metal, whose present market price is, in all human probability, less liable to be affected by over production than that of gold: the bullion value of which latter had already begun to decline in the Bazárs of India, simultaneously with the arrival of the first fruits of Australian mining. If the contemplated authoritative revolution in the established currency had to be applied to a fully civilized people, there might be less objection to this premature experiment; but to disturb the dealings of an empire, peopled by races of extreme fixity of ideas, to give advantages to the crafty few, to the detriment of the mass of the unlettered population, is scarcely justified by the exigencies of British trade, and India's well-wishers may fairly advance a mild protest against hasty legislation, and claim for a subject and but little understood Nationality, some consideration before the ruling power forces on their unprepared minds the advanced commercial tenets of the cities of London and Liverpool. The ordinary rate of exchange of silver against gold in Marco Polo's time (1271-91 A. D.),* may be inferred to have been eight to one; *The Province of KARAIAN. "For money they employ the white porcelain shell found in the sea, and these they also wear as ornaments about their necks. Eighty of the shells are equal in value to a saggio of silver, or two Venetian groats, and eight saggi of good silver to one of pure gold." Chap. xxxix. The Province of KARAZAN. "Gold is found in the rivers, both in small particles and in lumps; and there are also veins of it in the mountains. In consequence of the large quantity obtained, they give a saggio of gold for six saggi of silver. They likewise use the before-mentioned porcelain shells in currency, which, however, are not found in this part of the world, but are though exceptional cases are mentioned in localities within the reach of Indian traders, where the ratios of six to one and five to one severally obtained. Ibn Batutah, in the middle of the fourteenth century, when he was, so to say, resident and domesticated in India, reports the relative values of the metals as eight to one.* brought from India."-Chap. xl.; also Pinkerton (London, 1811), vol. vii., 143. The Province of KARDANDAN. "The currency of this country is gold by weight, and also the porcelain shells. An ounce of gold is exchanged for five cunces of silver, and a saggio of gold for five saggi of silver; there being no silver mines in this country, but much gold; and consequently the merchants who import silver obtain a large profit." Chap. xli. The Kingdom of MIEN (Ava). "You then reach a spacious plain [at the foot of the Yunnan range], whereon, three days in every week, a number of people assemble, many of whom come down from the neighbouring mountains, bringing their gold to be exchanged for silver, which the merchants who repair thither from distant countries carry with them for this purpose; and one saggio of gold is given for five of silver." Chap. xliii. Travels of Marco Polo, by W. Marsden, London, 1818; and Bohn's Edition, 1854. رايت الأرز يباع في اسواقها خمسة و عشرين رطلا دهلية بديدار فضى الدينار الفضى هو ثمانية دراهم و در همهم کالدار هم النقرة سواء 10.ir "J'ai vu vendre le riz, dans les marchés de ce pays [Bengale], sur le pied de vingt-cinq rithl de Dihly pour un dínár d'argent : celui-ci vaut huit drachmes, et leur drachme équivaut absolument á la drachme d'argent." (iv. 210.) The difficulty of arriving at any thoroughly satisfactory interpretation of theocbscure Arabic text, as it now stands, may be frankly admitted, nor do I seek to alter or amend the French translation, further than to offer a very simple explanation of what probably the author really designed to convey in the general tenor of the passage in question. It was a crude but established custom among the early Muhammadan occupying conquerors of India, to issue gold and silver coins of equal weights, indentical fabric, and analogous central legends; hence, whenever, as in the present instance, the word Dinár is used in apposition with and contrast to the secondary term Dirham, the one primá facie implies gold, the other silver; and there can be little doubt but that the original design of the text was to specify that one gold piece of a given weight passed in situ for eight silver pieces in similar form and of slightly greater bulk. It is possible that the term Dínár may in process of time have come to stand for a conventional measure of value, like the "pound sterling," susceptible by common consent of being liquidated in the due equivalent of silver; but this concession need not affect the direct contrast between the Dínár and Dirhams so obviously marked in the case in point. Ibn Batutah, in an earlier part of his work (iii. 426), [Lee's edition is imperfect at this portion, p. 149] gives us the comparative Delhi rate of exchangeof which he had unpleasant personal experiences: he relates that he was directed to be paid (55,000 + 12,000) 67,000 pieces of some well understood currency, neither the name or the metal of which is defined, but which may legitimately be taken to have been "Silver Tankahs," and in satisfaction of this amount, deducting the established one-tenth for Dasturi, which left a reduced total of 60,300, he received 6,233 gold tankahs. Under this scale of payment the gold must have borne a rate of exchange of one to 9.67 of silver, or very nearly one to 10, a proportion which might be supposed to clash with the one to eight of the more southern kingdom, but the existing state of the currencies of the two localities afford a striking illustration of the consistency The Emperor Akbar's minister, Abúl Fazl, has left an official record of the value of gold in the second half of the sixteenth century, at which period the price was on the rise, so that the mints were issuing gold coin in the relation of one to 9.4 of silver. But a remarkable advance must have taken place about this time, as in the second moiety of the seventeenth century, Tavernier* found gold exchanging against fourteen times its weight of silver, from which point it gradually advanced to one to fifteen, a rate it maintained when the East India Company re-modelled the coinage in 1833.† of the African observer's appreciation of money values in either case. His special patron, Muhammad bin Tughlak, Emperor of Dehli, had, from his first elevation to the throne, evinced a tendency to tamper with the currency, departing very early in his reign from the traditional equality of weights of gold and silver coins; he re-modelled both forms and relative proportions, introducing pieces of 200 grains of gold, styled on their surfaces dínárs, and silver coins of 140 grains, designated as adalis, in supersession of the ancient equable tankahs, both of gold and silver, extant examples of which in either metal come up to about 174 grains. More important for the present issue is the practical result, that, from the very commencement, Muhammad Tughlak's silver money is invariably of a lower standard than that of his predecessors, whether this refers to the early continuation of the full silver tankah, or to his own newly devised 140 grain piece, a mere reproduction of the time-honoured local weight, which the Aryan races found current in the land some twenty. five centuries before this Moslem revival; but in either case, this payment to Ibn Batutah seems to have been made after the Sultan had organised and abandoned that imaginary phase of perfection in the royal art of depreciating the circulating media, by the entire supercession of the precious metals, and following the ideal of a paper currency, the substitution of a copper simulacrum of each and every piece in the order of its degree from the Dínár to the lowest coin in the realm, the values being authoritatively designated on the surface of each. This forced currency held its own, more or less successfully, from 730 to 733, when it came to its simple and self-developed end. Taking the probable date of this payment as 742-3 A. H. (Ibn B. vi., p. 4, and vol. iii., p. xxii.), it may be assumed that the 174 (or 175) grain old gold tankah, which had heretofore stood at the equitable exchange of one to eight tankah's of good silver, came necessarily, in the depreciation of the new silver coins, to be worth ten or more of the later issues. Pathan Sultans, p. 53). * "All the gold and silver which is brought into the territories of the Great Mogul is refined to the highest perfection before it be coined into money."Tavernier, London Edition, 1677, p. 2. "The roupie of gold weighs two drams and a half, and eleven grains, and is valued in the country at 14 roupies of silver."-Page 2. "But to return to our roupies of gold, you must take notice that they are not so current among the merchants. For one of them is not worth above fourteen roupies." The traveller then goes on to relate his doleful personal experiences, of how, when he elected to be paid for his goods in gold," the king's uncle" forced him to receive the gold rupee at the rate of fourteen and a half silver rupees, whereby he lost no less than 3428 rupees on the transaction. Sir James Stewart, writing in 1772, also estimates the conventional propor ionate value of silver to gold, as fourteen to one"The Principles of Money applied to the present state of the Coin of Bengal." Calcutta, 1772. + Prinsep's Useful Tables, pp. 5, 72, 79. Afterwards, with prospering times, the metal ran up occasionally to fabulous premiums, to fall again ignominiously when Californian and Australian discoveries made it common in the land. I revert for the moment to a more formal recapitulation of the computations, which serve to establish the ratios of gold and silver in Akbar's time. Abul Fazl's figured returns give the following results: : First.-Chugal, weight in gold Tolah 3, Másha 0, Rati 51=30 Rs. of 11 Máshas each: 549.84:: 172.5X30 (5175.0) 1: 9.4118. Second.-Aftábí, gold, weight т. 1, м. 2, R. 4=12 Rs.: 218.90 :: 172.5 × 12 (2070.0) 1: 9.4563. Third.-Ilahí, or Lál Jalálí, also Muíanni, gold, weight м. 12, R. 1=10 Rs. 183-28 172.5 X 10 (1725-0): 1 :: 94118. : : 3 A. The larger piece, the Sihansah, in value 100 Lál Jalálís, gives an identical return. Weight in gold, T. 101, M. 9, R. 7 = 1000 Rs. 18328: 172,500 (172.5 X 100 X 10): 1 :: 9-4118. : Fourth.-Adl.-Guṭkah, or Muhar, also called Mahrábí, gold, weight 11 Máshas 9 Rs.: 165 172·5×9 (1552·5): 1 :: 9-40909. = 4 A. The higher proportions specified under the piece of 100 round Muhars, produce a similar result. Weight in gold, T. 91, м. 8=900 Rs. 16500 :: 155250 (172·5 × 100 × 9): 1 :: 9:40. These sums are based upon the ordinary Tolah of 180 gr., Másha of 15, and Rati of 1.875 grs. The question of corresponding values in the English scale need not affect the accuracy of comparisons founded upon the conventional measure by which both metals were estimated. I have given more prominence to the above calculations, and even tested anew my earlier returns by the independent totals afforded by the larger sums now inserted, because the obvious result of gold being to silver as one to 94, has been called in question by an official of the Calcutta Mint (a Dr. Shekleton), who, however, while unable either to correct my data, or to produce any possible evidence against my conclusions, ventures to affirm, that "94 to one is a relative value of gold to silver, which never could really have existed." Nevertheless, here is a series of comparative weights and values, furnished by the highest authority of the day, and each and all pro* Jour. As. Soc. Bengal, 1864, p. 517. |