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 315

DECEMBER, 1897.) CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE.
309
CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE.
BY R. C. TEMPLE. (Continued from p. 292.)
10.
Exchange. CXCHANGE between the metals used for currency has always varied greatly in the Far
East from time to time and from place to place, being governed by local supply and the facilities for transport: while a third highly disturbing element occurs in the statements of travellers and writers, vit., the quality of the metals mentioned by them. This last consideration renders the subject a specially difficult one to discass with any degree of certainty. Yule, however, in his invaluable works, never misses an opportunity of going ino this point, and to his researches we are indebted for much of the available information upon it.
From his Marco Polo, Vol. II. p. 59, we learn that in Yunàn, the great traveller foond, in the XIIIth Century, that, as one travelled Westwards, gold was to silver at first as 8 to 1, then as 6 to 1, then as 5 to 1 on approaching the Burmese borders. Here the silver mines of the Shan States, and the gold washing of Yünån, coupled with the difficulties of transport, must have come into play. It has done so elsewhere ; for in, the then isolated, Japan gold was to silver as 3 to 1, when the country was first opened up. In Orissa, Babu M. M. Chakravari (J. 4. S. B., for 1892, Part I, p. 43) shews that, at the latter part of the XIIth Century A. D., gold was to silver as 5 to 1, a fact which seems to have prevented the use of silver for coinage. Orissa was then, as it is to a certain extent now, & gold producing land, whereas communications with North India, where silver has always been plentiful, were difficult and precarious. Then there is the well-known case of the gold treasure-find made in the Dakhan by 'Alâu'ddin Khilji and Malik Kafür in the early part of the XIV th Century, which reduced the ratio of gold to silver in North India from 10 to 1 to 8 to 1, and then to 7 to 1.
As one instance, of many others that I might quote, of the extreme difficulty of ascertaining precisely what writers mean by their statements of values, the following may be cited. Browne, in his, to local officers, invaluable work on the Thayetmyo District, gives a series of tables shewing local revenues reduced to rupees. I have taken the tronble to work out the value of the tickal of silver as shewn in several of these tables, and the following is the startling result, especially considering the dates given :
1783 : value Re. 1 as. 7; pp. 94, 101, 107. 1825: yalne Re. 1 as. 7; p. 111,
1840, value Re. O as, 8; p. 96. Most other writers, where they do not mix ap the rupee with the tickal, a value the tickal of this period between Re. 1 as. 3, and Re. 1 as. 4. Symes, Ava, p. 317, puts the confusion of ratios very neatly for us:-“300 tackal in money, about £40 or £45." If £40, then the "tackal = Re. 1 as. 3: if £45, then it = Re. 1 as. 5. It was of no consequence! In the above value of the tickal at as. 8, in 1825, I rather gather, but am not sure, that Browne means to infer that the silver was bad.
of the general rate of exchange between silver and gold all over civilised Asia, Yulo has much to tell us, and arrives at the conclusion that in the Middle Ages down to the XVIIth Century it stood in China and in Central Asia at 10 to 1, while in Earope at that time it stood at 12 to 1,19 The relatively higher European rate seems, however, afterwards to have become reversed, and the rate in the Far East to have relatively risen; e.g., Yule shews that while the European
Chakravarti, op. cit. p. 46; Thomas, Chronicles, p. 285; and several other works. In 1556, under Akbar it was Ot to 1: Prinsep, Unbul Tables, pp. 5, 72. See also ante, Vol. XI. p. 818.
It is a very old mistake: "Siam weighta; 1 Tekull, is 12 or 13 Fanams Madras, or Rupoe." Stevena, Guido to the E. I. Trado, 1776 p. 88. Finlayson, Siam, 1826, pats the tical at nearly Bo. 11, p. 187.
30 Cathay, Vol. I. p. ccl.; Vol. II. p. 442.