________________
JULY, 1893.)
CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE.
175
And in fact these coins do so show in accounts.
It will be readily understood that such a system of reckoning and such a complicated nomenclature could survive into everyday use in practical life among an essentially uneducated people, only if the real meaning of the terms used be not present in the minds of those who use them. This is the actual fact, and the above enquiry is therefore only useful for the purpose of grasping the meaning and origin of the phenomena of the systom.
To the Manipuri, when reckoning money and setting down accounts the terms for his. coinage present thomselves to his mind merely as abstract words for onumerating it in A the quaternary scale: thus:--
1 sêl is simply a makhải 2 sel are simply a phaigak or selama
4 sel are simply a gångkhai This can be shown to be the case by the use of the terms
makhải-amâ for 1 sêi, lit., 1 makhai phaigak-am for 2 sêi, lit., 1 phaigak
yangkhni-ami for 4 sel, lit., 1 yang khai In this way the Manipuri reckons thus: -
2 makhîi are 1 phaigaks? or half-quartette
2 phaigak are 1 yang khai or quartette In the same mental attitude the Manipuri continues his rockoning up to 20 quartettes, which make a lishing, thus :
2 gångkhai are sâmå
sani
sahům
samari And so on by the terms for "hundreds." In precisely the same way five lishing make a lúpå, or rupee.
This abstract way of looking at the words used is also visiblo in the terms for the intermediate denominations for the odd parts of the quartettes, thus: -
3 sel are phaigak makhai, i.e., & phaigak37 and a makhái, or a half quartette and - & sêl.
5 sel are yângkhai maklâi, i. e., a yângkhai and a makhâi, or a quartette and a sél. The above terminology applies to the sél as a money of account.
For rookoning the sel as a coin the terminology is much simpler and more straightforward. Thus, the term for the coined sél being makhái, sél in the form of coin are simply counted as any other article would be, and in this way the terms for the British Indian silver coins are simplified down to the following: -
British Indian silver coins in terms of coined 801,
.
English
Manipurl.
Sense.
Rupee samari
400 8-anna piece sani ...
200 4-anna piece Bí mà . .
100 2-anpa piece ... ... ... yang khai ... ... ... ... 37 It being understood that silamd and phaigak aro purely synonyms: merely convertible forma,
50
