Indian Antiquary Vol 26

SR No.: 032518
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 360
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 164

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JUNE, 1897.
look like enamel. With these shells for ballast many ships are laden for Bengal and Siam, where they are used for money, just as we (Portuguese) use small copper money for buying things of little value. And even to this Kingdom of Portugal, in some years as much as two or three thousand quintals27 are brought by way of ballast. They are then exported to Guinea and the Kingdoms of Benin and Congo, where also they are used for money, the Gentiles (Heathen Natives) of the interior in those parts making their treasure of it."
160
The whole situation was accurately described by Pyrard de Laval, nearly three hundred years ago, when describing the currency of the Maldives: "The coin of the realm is silver only and of one sort. These are pieces of silver called larins (hook-money) of the value of eight sous or thereabouts of our (French) money, as I have said, as long as the finger and doubled down. The king has them struck in his Island and stamped with his name in Arabic characters. All other coins are foreign, and though they are current, they are only taken at their just value and weight, and they must be gold or silver; all others are rejected." And again at p. 235, he says: "They take no silver without weighing it and trying it in the fire to prove it: and every body has weights in his house for this purpose."29
3.
Chipped Bullion.
la using lumps of metal of indefinite size as currency the practice in Burma was, and is still, in places, as in China, to chop off the required weight from the lump and to tender the chip in exchange for the article wanted. In out-of-the-way places some dealers still keep a hammer and chisel for the purpose, and others either go to the local jeweller or assaymaster and get the lump chipped off for them, or borrow his hammer and chisel and do the needful themselves.30
If we may define a coin as a lump of metal stamped with recognised marks to indicate fineness and weight i. e., exchange value the collection shown on Plates I. and II. exhibits a complete history of the evolution of coinage. Thus :
(1) the mere lump of metal whose fineness can only be tested by actual assay or outward appearance, and its weight only by actual weighment;
(2) the lump of metal whose fineness is attested by a mark stamped thereon, but
whose weight can only be ascertained by actual weighment;
(3) the token whose appearance and apparent weight gives it an exchange value without further test;
(4) the coin stamped by marks to indicate weight and fineness-i. e., exchange value;
(5) the coin of the realm, or coin stamped with those marks which give it a forced currency within the realm and make it the legal medium of exchange.
Huc, Nat. Ill. Library Ed., Vol. I. p. 146, has a very interesting note on the treatment of coins by cutting in Tibet, as if they were ingots of metal:-"The monetary
27 Equal to a weight of about 100 to 150 tons, the quintal or kentle being practically the British cut. 28 Hak. Soc. Ed., Vol. I. p. 282.
29 See Phayre, Int. Num. Or., Vol. III. Pt. I. p. 88; and Miss Corner's China, written for Bohn, Bell's Ed., p. 212; Pyrard de Laval, Hak, Soc. Ed., Vol. I. p. 285, Vol. II. p. 176; Malcom, Travels, Vol. II. p. 269.
30 Captain Younghusband informed me that in his travels in China he found it necessary to apply to working jewellers to chop pieces from the silver bars or ingots he carried as money, as it was a difficult and tedious operation in unpracticed hands. See also La Loubère, Siam, E. T., Vol. I. p. 72. Prinsep, Useful Tables, p. 30, says that the lumps of silver sent from Ava after the First Burmese War as indemnity weighed "20 to 30 tikals (30 to 40 tolas)," and so were obviously useless for currency except by chopping. Colquhoun, in his Across Chryse, Vol. I. p. 139, hae rather an interesting reference to lump currency when he tells us that sacrifices to the "Wealth God" by the Chinese consists of hares, eggs, game, fire. works and carp which for this occasion is called "silver-ingot fish."