Indian Antiquary Vol 27

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

Page 41

FEBRUARY, 1898.]
CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE.
37
Turkistan, J. A. S. B., Pt. I., Extra Number, 1878, p. 69 f., it is recorded that “tangah is a money of account used in Turkistan, consisting of 25 small copper cash' of Chinese make with square holes through them, called lahchan,50 each of which is worth two pul, imaginary coin. The value of the tangah varies constantly in the bázárs, according to the number of tangahs that may be given for a kurs, a Chinese silver ingot weighing about 2 lbs.61 and worth about 170 Rupees. Sometimes the number reaches 1100 and sometimes falls as low as 800..... The Khosan tangah consists of 50 copper shuchan, which are slightly smaller than the Yarkand dahchan. Consequently a Khosan tangah is worth nearly twice as much as a Yarkand or Kåshghar one." But at p. 59 we find "pul,52 & copper coin, the 50th part of a tangah, which = 5 pence about; also money in general.” This information is a little uncertain, but we have a clear reference of Turki to Chinese standards.
It is often difficult to determine the language or dialect that travellers across the Asiatic Continent are using, when detailing their monetary transactions en route, prices, and so on. Usually their attempts at describing the currency results in a jumble of terms, due, no doubt, to their interpreters' notions of making them understand it. Witness the following statement of Littledale, Journey Acro88 Tibet in the Geographical Journal, 1896, Vol. VII. p. 456: -- " Theoretically the Chinese monetary systom is very convenient: 10 fen = 1 miscal, and 10 miscal = 1 seer; but unfortunately all payments are made in tengahs, sixteen of which go to a seer in Kashgar and only eight in Khotan, so confusion results." Here fen is Chinese: miscal is Arabic and now Asiatic Muhammadan : seer is Indian. Apparently what is intended is that 10 fên (candareen) = 1 ch'en (mace) : 10 ch'en =1 liang (tael), which would make the Turki ser to be a very different weight from the Indian sér.
Mr. Littledale, following the example of many another traveller, sometimes uses (pp. 456, 468) the terms of English money to express his statements of prices and sometimes those of Indian money (pp. 469, 473). But on p. 473 he says: “I wrote, proposing to give to their temples fifty silver yamboos (1 yamboo = £8 or £9) if they would allow us to pass through Lhasa and go to Sikkim." As regards the term yainboo we get an explanation from Dr. Sven Hedin's horrible Journey through the Takla-Makan Desert, Chinese Turkistan, in op. cit., 1896, Vol. VIII. p. 365:-"He brought back all my money (Chinese jambor and Kashgarian te ngehs)."
The yamboo53 or jambor would appear then to be an ingot of silver about half the value of a kurs, and the remarks of these travellers justify Shaw both as to facts and to the influence of Chinese currency in those parts.
Malay Weights,
We have just seen (ante, p. 33) from a Chinese account of the XVth Century A. D., that the Malay ponderary table of that period can be stated as follows:
4 kobangs are 1 mace 16 mace 1 tael 20 tael » 1 catty
#0 1. 6., the tanga is the quarter mace.
- Say c. 2 catties (kin) of 80 taele (liang). 01 Apparently there is a confusion here between the pul of account and the pub (fuls, fala) a copper coin of Western origin.
65 The word appears to be Tibetan ( - silver piece) : Terrien de la Couperie, Catalogue of Chinese Coins, P. IX