Indian Antiquary Vol 27

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 23

JANUARY, 1898.) CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE.
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It is obvious that this man's knowledge of British coinage in Siamese territory must havo been picked up in tho places in which it is current, i. e., in the Siamese Shin States, where the lat and at are practically the only recognised native copper currency, and where the small British silver, viz., the two and four-anna pieces, would be known in terms of the lat and dt. Now, if the dt run 48 to the rupee, 3 at will make one anna, and no doubt that fact was in the man's mind, when describing the anna as being of three "byd" or "copper pieces," the term vyá being borrowed from the surrounding Burmese idiom.
A correspondent of the Rangoon Gazette (22nd November 1897, p. 20) dating from rural Siam (apparently from a Siamese Shan State, for he notes that rupees and British small silver are current together with Siamese money) gives the following account of & village computetion of a simple sum in British ourrency:
"Arithmetic seems to be unknown. A man once had to add Rs. 236-14-0 to Rs. 165-2-0. He could not do it; neither could any of the clever' men in the village whose aid had been invoked. Finally a Baba - father Chinese, mother Siamese - turned up. He was asked and correctly did the addition. His method was interesting, and I give it. He placed two rapees on the ground to represent handreds of the Rs. 234-14-0. Then another rupee to represent the single hundred in Rs. 163-2-0, making three rupees, representing three hundreds on the ground. He next placed nine eight-anna bits to represent the tens of the 34 and 65. Then came nino four-anna bits for the 4 and 5 of the units. He knew that 14 annas and two annas made a rupee. He therefore added a four-anna bit to the nine already placed on the ground. These he took away as representing one ten, and added an eight-anna bit to the nine already placed. This gave ten eight-anna bits representing 100 rupees. Sweeping these away, he added a rupee to the three originally referred to, and announced the result as Rs. 400 to an astonished and wonder-struck crowd. Needless to say that Check To was from that day forward a man of some consequence in the village."
The method of addition above quoted evidently struck the writer as something strange, but the explanation is simple enough. The "Baba" had clearly been taught the use of the Chinese abacus (svanpan),11 and, being without the instrument, improvised one out of the British coins available on the spot.
The above problem, as worked out on the system of the Chinese abacus, can be stated as follows, in order to shew to a person trained to Europeau mathematics the process of reasoning foilowed by the "Baba" :
Let a = 100: 6 = 10:0=1: 16d = c. Add 2a, 3b, 4c, 141 to a, 66, 50, 21; and state the result in figures. Then 2a + a= 3a: 36 + 66 = 96: 4c + 5c = 9c: 21 + 1411 = 160 = c. Then 9c+c=10c = 6:9b+b=106 = 9: 3a + a=4a 400. Q.E.D.
A Burman (or for that matter, & modern Tibetan, an ancient inhabitant of India, or a modern Indian astrologer) would have tackled the problem thus, writing on sand, or on a sanded board, beginning with the large figures, and rubbing out and substituting as he proceeded, precisely as did the " Baba."
Problem: add Rs. 231-14 to Rs. 165-2. Write.......... 234
163
:
11 Pronounced sinpon to me by # Southern Chinese. See Terrien de la Couperie, Oul Numerals and the Swan an in China, passim : Knott, Abacus, J.4. S., Japan, Vol. XIV. p. 18 ff.: La Loubère, Siam, E.T., p. 182.
12 See present writor's article on Burmese Arithmetio, ante, Vol. XX. 53 #.