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334
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1889.
Patiala, as might be expected, gave the best answers; and as regards the first question we may pass over all the replies, as recapitulating what has been already written berein, except to note that in 1857 Patiala very nearly succeeded in ousting her old coinage for a modern English rupee on the plan that Alwar adopted later, and as Mindon Min of Burma succeeded in doing for his country about the same time. Passing on, we find that the Patiala rupees are called Bajashahi, the Jind rupees Jindia, and the NAbha rupees simply Nabha.
Only silver, and occasionally gold, is coined. The Patiala rupee weighs 117 mdshas of pure silver and is of the fall value of a rupee. The weight of the Jînd rupee is the same, but its value is only about 12 ánás (t rupee). The Nábha rupee is also of the same weight, and is valued at 15 anás (10 rupee).
The Patiala mohar is a valuable coin, being 101 máshas of pure gold. Jind does not coin gold, but the Nâbhâ Government sometimes strikes & mohar of 97 máshas of pure gold.
In none of these states is there any regular outturn of coinage. Special occasions and sometimes economical necessities oblige the mint to become active by fits and starts. In fact the moneyers only work when necessity drives." In Jind' and Nâbhâ, royal marriages and great state functions are practically the only occasions when money is coined in any quantity
Jind apparently keeps up no establishment for its mint, but Patialâ and Nábhê do so. The Patiala establishment consists of a superintendent, a clerk, two assayers, one weigher, ten smiths, ten moneyers, four refiners and one engraver. The Nábhá establishment is on & still smaller scale, viz., one superintendent, one assayer, one smelter, one refiner, one smith. The refining is carefully performed in both cases, and the silver and gold kept up to standard.
Jind has never received bullion for coining, but Patiklâ receives both silver and gold, and Nâbhâ silver. For silver Patiâlâ charges the public 1 per cent and for gold Rs. 24 per 100 coins, or 13 per cent. Nâbhâ charges less, only 1 per cent. for coining silver.
Jind rupees are current only within the State, but the Patiâlâ coins find currency both in the State and in its immediate neighbourhood in some quantity; while only a few Nâbhâ coins find their way outside the State.
The Mâlêr-Koflê mint issues its coins apparently on precisely the same lines, the rupee going by the name of the Kotla rupee, Extensive frauds on the part of the mint masters, twice detected of late years in fraudulently alloying the silver, has depreciated the value of this rupee to 12 ánás (I rupee).32
It is also very interesting to watch the steady depreciation in weight of the coins of the successive chiefs of Méler-Kolå in connection with the general theory of the evolution of coins. Thus:
weight of coin Umr Khân, 1768-78
9 máshas 4 rattis Amir Khai, 1821.45 Mahbab'Alf (Sabe) Khai, 1845-1859 8 , 4 , Sikandar Ali Khan, 1859-1871 8 , 2 , Ibrahîm 'Ali Khan, 1871 to date 8 1
No wonder the Khâusahib 'Inayat Ali Khan in the passage just quoted remonstrates against the practices of the Kotlê mint !
The present writer, as has been already noted, had the good fortune some five years ago to be escorted over the Patiala Mint, and to have been given an opportunity of noting what occurred.
The Mint is an ordinary Panjabi Court-yard, about 20 feet square in the open part, entered by a gateway leading into a small apartment doing duty as an entrance hall, the remainder of the courtyard being surrounded by low open buildings opening into it. These buildings, which looked like the "rooms” of a sardi, are the workshops.
Principal Ki Afghans, p. 19, footnote.