________________
JULY, 1898.)
CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE.
171
have adopted the scale of 400 dâms to their apper standard money of account, the takká, which is the rupee and which weighs a lila.
Now it can be shown that there is no doubt about the origin of the Manipuri soale of 400 sál to the rupee of socount being directly due to the system of reokoning 400 cowries to the anna, and the sol of Manipar being the dam of Akbar's time and of modern Nepal.
In the first place the sol are reokoned for account purposes by fours, that is, by the equivalents of gandás, 19 in precisely the same way as are cowrios. The only difference is that ono sól -12) cowries, and therefore
sel are 50 cowries 8 , 100 12 ,
150 80 ? 1,000
400 · 5,000 » Now four sel are kuown by the name of " fifty," and multiples of four sel up to 400 sél ard known by name as multiples of 50; thus, the name for 8 oél is simply “one hundred :" for 12 sél "one hundred and fifty:" for 80 sél "one thousand." A rupee, s. e., 400 sél, is in reckoning known as "five thousand." This system of naming is not used for the intermediate denominations; i. e., 2 sél are not called “twenty-five;" nor are 8 sél called "371" nor are 6 sel called “75." Such denominations have a system of terminology resting on altogether a different basis. It is therefore clear that the sel are counted by fours, each four being in accounts equal to 50 cowries and called by that name.
The actual nomenclature is as follows:
Serial Nos. of quartettes.
No. of sel.
Name.
Sense of name,
50
100
150
200
yangkhain and yângkhai-amaa sâmás ... ... så må gångkhai... saui* ... ... sani gângkhai ... sahům ... ... Baham yongkhai sâmari ... ... såmari yângkhai
250
300
850
400 450
1 To reckon by gandag is to reckon by fours. Beames' Ed. of Elliot'. Glonary, Vol. II. p. 815: Grierson, Bihar Peasant Life, p. 430: Thomas, Pathan Kinge, p. 220.
* In the vernacular enumeration given by Primrose, Grammar, p. 80, all these terms are preceded by the word
: . ., 'l yang khai, sél chamd: but I did not gather that this is really the custom, ezoept when it is necessary to prevent obvions ambiguity. 11 Lit., one yang khai,
# $a, sd, cha, chd is the prefix for 100: cf. Malay sa. » Called by Primrose chans in Roman characters, but chali in Bengali characters: P. 30.
