imperial re-assertions, and numismatic contributions from other independent sources aid in the casual illustration of the varying political conditions of the province, and of the relations maintained from time to time between the too-independent governors of a distant principality and their liege suzerains at Dehli. Muhammadan writers have incidentally preserved a record of the fact, that on the first entry of their armies into Bengal, they found an exclusive cowrie or shell currency, assisted possibly by bullion in the larger payments, but associated with no coined money of any description ;* a heritage of primitive barter, indeed, which survived undis September, 1864, p. 481). In the first place, I greatly mistrust the reading of the sixth king's title. Muhammad bin Tughlak was called Fukhrud-din Júnah in his youth only; on his first mission to the Dakhin in 721 A. H., the higher title of Ulugh Khan was conferred upon him by his father, but from the date of his accession to the throne of Hindustan, he contented himself with the use of his simple name and patronymic; no longer the " glory of the faith," he or the conventional و الوثق بتائید الرحمن was the far more humble المجاهد في سبيل الله الدين such title as all Jews (Zia-i-Barní., Calcutta edit., p. 196), both of which were so persistently copied by the independent Bengal Sultans. Certainly no occurs on any of the specimens of the Kooch Bahár collection, that the Bábu has selected for Col. Guthrie, with the exception of those bearing the names of Fakr-ud-din Mubarak Shah. The second question of the altogether improbable intrusion of coins of Muhammad Adil Shah ("new type ") I must meet in a more direct way, by assigning the supposed examples of his money to the potentate from whose mints they really came, that is, Ikhtiár-ud-din GHází SHAH (No. 7, infra), giving a difference in the age of the two kings, as far as their epochs affect the probable date of the concealment of this trouvaille, of more than two centuries (753 a.H. against 960 A.H.). The Bábu has himself discovered his early error of making Shams-ud-din Firúz, one of the Dehli Patháns (as reported in the local newspapers), and transferred him, in the printed proceedings in the Asiatic Society of Bengal, to an anomalous position at the end of the Bengal Pathans (p. 483), while omitting to deduct him from the total number of “eight Dehli Patháns," which reckoning has been allowed to stand at p. 480. In the matter of date, we are not informed why this king should be assigned to A.D. 1491, instead of to the true 1320 A.D. which history claims for him, * Minháj-ul-Seráj, who was resident in Lakhnauti in А H. 641, writes چنان تقریر کردند که دران بلاد کوده بعوض جیل روان است Tabakát-i-Násiri, p. 149, Calcutta printed edition (1864). Ibn Batutah gives an account of the collection of the cowrie shells in the Maldive Islands, from whence they were exported to Bengal in exchange for rice; the gradational quantities and values are detailed as follows; 100 cowries. J— 700 a The title of Mohammed bin Toghlak on the specimens in the Society's sal and the coin which was first taken for that of Adil Shah has on it"Ikhtiar uddin Gházi Shah.-ED, سبيل الله cabinet is turbed in many of the out-lying districts up to the early part of the present century. The consistent adherence of the people to this simple medium of exchange, goes far to explain an enigma recently adverted to* in my paper on the identity of Krananda as to the general absence of all specimens of money of high antiquity within certain limits northward of the seaboard, and may serve to reconcile the anomaly of conterminous nationalities appearing in such different degrees of advancement when tried by similar isolated tests of local habitudes. For the rest, the arms of Islám clearly brought with them into Bengal what modern civilization deems a fiscal necessity-a scheme of national coinage; and the present enquiry is concerned to determine when and in what form the conquerors applied the theory and practice they themselves as yet but imperfectly realized. When Muhammad bin Sám had so far consolidated his early successes in India, into a design of permanent occupancy, leaving a viceroy and generalissimo in Dehli, in the person of Kutb-ud-din Aibek, while his own court was still held at Ghazní, the scattered subordinate commanders each sought to extend the frontiers of the faith beyond the limits already acquired; in pursuance of this accepted mission, Muhammad Bakhtíár Khiljí, Sipahsálár in Oude, in A. H. 599, pushed his forces southward, and expelled, with but little effort, the ancient Hindu dynasty of Nuddeah, superseding that city as the capital, and transferring the future metropolis of Bengal to the proximate site of Lakhnautí, where he ruled undisturbed by higher authority, till his own career was prematurely cut short in A. H. 602. w ވ £12,000.m=100,000, four bustús were estimated as worth one gold dinár; but the rate of exchange varied considerably, so that occasionally a dinár would purchase as many as twelve bustús, or twelve lakhs of cowries! (French edit, iv., p. 121. Lee's Translation, p. 178.) Sir Henry Elliot mentions that "in India, in 1740, a rupee exchanged for 2,400 cowries; in 1756, for 2,560 cowries; and (1845) as many as 6,500 could be obtained for a rupee.' -Glossary of Indian Terms, p. 373. They were estimated in the currency scheme of 1833 at 6,400 per rupee.-Prinsep's U. T., p. 2. Major Rennell, who was in Silhet in 1767-8, speaking of the cowrie money, remarks: "I found no other currency of any kind in the country; and upon an occasion, when an increase in the revenue of the province was enforced, several boat loads (not less than 50 tons each) were collected and sent down the Burrampooter to Dacca." As late as 1801 the revenues of the British district of Silhet "were collected in cowries, which was also the general medium of all pecuniary transactions, and a considerable expense was then incurred by Government in effecting their conversion into bullion."-Hamilton's Hindostan, London, 1820, i p. 195. * J. R. A. S., vol. i., N. S., p. 473-4. Considering the then existing time-honoured system of valuations by shells, which would certainly not invite a hasty issue of coin,Muhammad Bakhtiar's acknowledged subordination to Kutb-ud-dín, who, so far as can be seen, uttered no money in his own name, it may fairly be inferred that if a single piece was produced, it formed a part only of an occasional, or special, Medallic mintage constituting a sort of numismatic Fatah-námah, or assertion and declaration of conquest and.supremacy alone, and designedly avoiding any needless interference with the fixed trade by adventitious monetary complications, which so unprogressive a race as the Hindus would naturally be slow to appreciate. Similar motives may be taken to have prevailed in the north, where the least possible change was made in the established currency of the country, extending, indeed, to a mere substitution of names in the vernacular character on the coin, which was allowed to retain the typical "Bull and Horseman" device of Prithvi Rája and his predecessors. The pieces themselves, designated from their place of mintage Dehli-walas, were composed of a mixture of silver and copper in intentionally graduated proportions, but of the one fixed weight of thirty-two ratis, or the measure of the old Purána of silver of Manu's day. Progressive modifications were effected in the types and legends of these coins, but no systematic reconstruction of the circulating media took place until the reign of Altamsh; who, however, left the existing currencies undisturbed, as the basis for the introduction of the larger and more valuable and exclusively silver & popularly known in after times as the Tankah,† a standard which may also be supposed The name is written in Kutb-ud-din Aibek's inscription on the mosque at Denli. (Prinsep's Essays, i. 327). The Táj-ul-Maásir and other native authorities give the word as Jales. Hasan Nizami, the author of the former work, mentions that Kubáchah, ruler of Sind, sent his son with an offering of 100 laks of Dehli-wals to Altamsh, and no less than 500 láks of the same description of coin were eventually found in Kubácháh's treasury, many of which were probably struck in his own mints. (See Ariana Antiqua, pl. xx., fig. 19; J. A. S. B., iv., pl. 37, figs. 28, 29, 47; and Prinsep's Essays, i., pl. xxvi., figs. 28, 29, 47.) Erskine derives this name from the Chagatai Túrki word, tang, (History of India under Báber. London, 1854, vol. i. p. 546). tenuis, suff. 8). Ibn Batutah carefully preserves the orthography "" white." Vullers gives a as different and clearly preferable derivation in a s. टंक and टङ्क (fort. ex. S. تنگه تنگ to have followed traditional weights in the contents assigned to it, as the 96 rati-piece modern ideas would identify with the Tolah: or it may possibly have been originated as a new 100 rati coin, a decimal innovation on the primitive Hindu reckoning by fours, a point which remains to be determined by the correct ascertainment of the normal weight of the rati, which is still a debated question. My own results, obtained from comparative Numismatic data of various ages, point to 1.75 grains, while General Cunningham adheres to the higher figures of 1.8229 grains.† * J. A. S. Bengal, 1865, p. 25, and Numismatic Chronicle. Vol iv., N. S. p. 131, March, 1861. + General Cunningham's deductions are founded on the following estimates: "I have been collecting materials for the same subject [Indian Weights] for nearly twenty years, and I have made many curious discoveries. I see that Mr. Thomas quotes Sir William Jones as fixing the weight of the Krishnala, or Rati seed, at 1 grain; but I am satisfied that this is a simple misprint of Jones's manuscript for 1 or 1-833 grain, which is as nearly as possible the average weight of thousands of seeds which I have tested. The great unit of mediæval and modern times is the táka of not less than 145 grains, of which six make the chha-táka, or chhatak, equal to 870 grains, or nearly two ounces; and 100 make the sataka, or ser, the derivation being sat-táka, or 100 takas. For convenience I have taken, in all my calculations, the rati seed at 1.8229 grain. Then 80 ratis or 145 832 was the weight of the tangka of copper, and also of the golden suvarna, which multiplied by six gives 874.99 grains, or exactly two ounces for the chha-táka or chhatak."-J. A. S. Bengal, 1865, page 46. Mr. N. S. Maskelyne, of the Mineral Department, British Museum, who, some time ago, entered into an elaborate series of comparisons of Oriental weights, with a view to determine the identity of one of our most celebrated Indian diamonds, has been so obliging as to draw up for me the following memorandum, exhibiting the bearing of an entirely independent set of data upon the question under review, the true weight of the Indian Rati. The value of this contribution in itself, and the difficulty of doing justice to it in an abstract, must plead my excuse for printing it in extenso in this place: : I shall contine my answer to your question about the rati to the estimate of it, as derived from the Mishkâl. The other channel of enquiry, that namely of Hindoo metrology and numismatics, is too complicated, and so far as I have been able to follow it, too unsatisfactory in its results, to justify my urging any arguments derived from it. Indeed, the oscillations in the currencies, and our knowing so few very fine coins of reigns before Shir Shah, of critical value, make this branch of the subject almost unapproachable to one who is not an Oriental scholar. I would premise, however, that I do not believe very accurate results are to be obtained solely from the weights of coins, except in the few cases where, as in the coins of Akbar, or of Abd-el-Malek ben Merwán, we have some literary statements about them. Nor can you get any result from weighing carob beans to determine the carat, or abrus seeds to determine the rati. I weighed, long ago, hundreds of ratis, that Dr. Daubeny lent me, with an average of 1.694 troy grains. Sir William Jones found, I believe, one of 1.318, and Professor Wilson, I think, another value again. They vary according to the soil and climate they are grown in, and the time and atmosphere they have been kept in. My investigation of the rati originated in a desire to determine whether the diamond, now the Queen's, was the same that Baber records as having been given to Humayûn at the taking of Agra, after the battle of Paniput, and which However, these silver coins of Altamsh, let their primary static ideal have been based upon a duplication of the dirhams of Ghazni, had once belonged to Alá-ed-dín (Khilji). I also was led to suppose that the diamond Tavernier saw at the Court of Aurungzebe was the same, and that he had confounded it with one that Meer Jumla gave to Shah Jehán, and that had been recently found at Golconda. I would here observe that Tavernier's weights can be very little trusted; I can give you my reasons for this assertion, if you wish for them. Báber, in his memoirs, says the weight of Humáyún's diamond was about 8 mishkals. In his description of India, he gives the following ratios of the weights in use there : = 1 máshah. 8 ratis 32 40 96 Jewels and precious stones being estimated by the tang. Furthermore he states 14 tolas = 1 sir, 40 sírs= 1 man etc. Thus, then, the 8 mishkâls would be 320 ratis. Tavernier says the diamond he saw weighed 319 ratis. The Koh-i-Nûr, in 1851 (and, I believe, in Baber's day also), weighed 589.5 grains troy. The theory that it was Alá-ed dín's diamond, would demand a mishkâl (8) weight of (3) (320 of 8 to the masha) 1.8425 ) 2.533 Now, as to the mishkál-the Mahommadan writers speak of it as not having altered from the days of the Prophet. Doubtless, it has been a pretty permanent weight, and very likely, in Makrizi's time, was but slightly various in different places. At present, the following table represents the different mishkáls, so far as I have been able to ascertain them. The gold and silver mishkál of Bassorah = 1 dirham........... 72 grains. mussal or mishkal of Gamroon (71,75 miscals 100 mahmoudias 5136 grains)... The The gold and silver miscal of Mocha 24 carats=24, vakya In Persian, the demi mishkâl of the batman of Chessay (of 8871 grains) The taurid batman and mishkâl half the above The mishkâl corresponding to the (4) dirham used for gold and Báber, in speaking of the mishkâl, may either mean his own Bokharan mishkâl, or, as seems more probable, the current mishkál as existing at that time in India, in short, the "Indian or Syrian mishkâl of the Mahommadan writers-which was the Greek mishkál + 2 kirats. The modern debased mishkål of Bokhara we may leave out of our comparisons. It is surely a degraded weight in a country that has undergone an eclipse. The old "Greek Dinar" is of course the Byzant, or solidus aureus-the denarius of Byzantium. It was nominally coined 72 to the Roman lb. The Byzantian Roman lb. in the British Museum weighs 4995 grains, so the solidus |