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 239

SEPTEMBER, 1897.) CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE.
293
What was actually meant by "money" at that period seems to be difficult to determine. According to Terrien de la Couperie, Catalogue of Chinese Coins, p. 25, the wu-tchat copper cash were current from B. C. 40 to 8. D. 1:0, but he shows at p. 393 ff, that there was great confusion in the currency after 4. D. 26, and again about A. D. 147. At any rate, he says that, after A. D. 25,"silk, clothes, metal in lumps, and corn were again resorted to (for currency), as in the olden time." He says, however, that in A. D. 40 "5-tchu cash were regularly brought into circulation."
In any case, whatever this Tan " money" may have been, it was not indigenous; and as to the age of the uncoined currency of the Burmese, Parker, Burma Relations toith China, p. 11 ff., gives a very interesting fact. Quoting from the Annals of the Tang Dynasty he skews that the Piao (Pyü) Kingdom mentioned therein was undoubtedly Burma, and then goes on to quote : "gold and silver are nsed as money, the shape of which is crescent like?: it is called téngk'at'o and also truk-t'an-t'o." The period of the Tang Dynasty was 618 - 907 A. D. and the year referred to in the question was apparently 832 A. D.
Professor Terrien de la Couperie, in his Catalogue of Chinese Coins in the British Museum, with his usual boldness, takes us, in describing similar currency in China itself, into periods usually held to be at best semi-historical, when dating the various kinds of it; but, as regards Burma until something older turns up we may take this date, 832 A. D., as the oldest known. Thence the story is carried on by Marco Polo and the many early European explorers of the regions of Further India, and, when the Burmose native annals shall have been well explored, probably more definite information will be forthcoming.
But I may as well add here a couple of facts in support of the general statements from Chineso sources not usually accessible and supplied by Mr. E. H. Parker,
In the year 1297, Kublai's successor gave Tih-lih-piu-wa-na-a-tih-t'iya a patent as King of Burma, and recognised his son Sin-hoh-pah-tih, as heir apparent. This Sin-hoh-pah-tih, or Sin hopadi, had been sent to congratulate the new Emperor (Ch'eng Tsung), who fixed the annual tribute (of Burma) at 2,500 ounces of silver, 1,000 silk sarangs, 20 tame elephants, 10,000 mensures of grain.10
In A. D. 1656, the Mang (Burmese) " chieftain" and the Chinese authorities in the Shan States had a quarrel, and the Chinese led the Burmese into a successful ambush at Kah-sa, which appears to be Kaths on the Irrawaddy. Here they starved the Burmese army, iu whose camp the famine was so great that "a gill of rice was sold for & pinch of gold.""
This is referred to by de la Coupario in his Catalogue of China Coina, p. IX., the "crescent silver money of Ancient Pega." Unless there are specimens existing to prove the contrary, it may be pretty safely saamed that this "orescent silver" consisted in reality of chips from lampe of ytbetnf or dain, i. e., "Powered silver." These lumps, they come from the cracible, are generally flat and circular.
• See Mayers, Chinese Reader's Manual, p. 338 ff.
. Exceedingly valuable and interesting references on this point are to be found in Yale's Cathay and the Way Thither, Vol. I. pp. IXV., Ozovi., Ozoir., oo viii., 116 ff., 222, 224, 240 n.
10 In the present real confusion of names and dates in Burmese history, it is difficult to say positively who are meant by these titles, for the Chinese words are not equivalents for names. They represent the Skr. titlon Bripavanáditya and Sinhapati, and from the context we may take it that the Burmese King meant by the latter title is Nayabiha pade (Naruinapati), whose well-known nickname is Tayökpye, or "Fled from the Chinese."
See de Morga's almost contemporary statement that, among the independent tribes of the Philippines, rough gold (i, e., unrefined gold just as found) was bartered for food. (Hak. Soc. Ed., p. 284.) I may add here that the Kados of Katha in Burma behave much in the same manner to the present day. Cf. Indo-China, Second Series, Vol. I. P. 398, Maxwell, Journey on foot to the Palani Frontier, p. 49, says that gold dust was the currency in 1675 at the Belong Gold Mine, Compare Pyrard do Laval's Acoount of Malacca, Hak. Soo, Ed.. Vol. II. p. 176. A very interest. ing and still earlier reference to the use of gold dust as currency occurs in Sarat Chandra Day' Indian Pandits in the Land of Snow, p. 70, where the death of Gyatson Sengé, the Tibetan worthy, at Buddha Gayd, is attributed to failure to pay for a charan, thus:-"I learnt a mystic charm called the Nava Sandhi, or the Nine Conjunctions, from a certain black Tirthiks named Réha. In return for it I promised to remunerate him with an onnce of gold. I offered him gold dust of that weight, but he, thinking it was less by a small measure, wished me to bring the gold after melting it, which I did not do." Gyataon was a contemporary of Atta, = Dipankara Brijñana, who was born In A. D. 990. Cf. also Strat:ll, Picus Elastic, p. 133: Colquhoun, Amongst the Shans, p. 2.