Indian Antiquary Vol 27

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

Page 95

APRIL, 1898.)
CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE.
91
be referred to the scale of 88 ratis to the tola. Prinsep, Useful Tables, p. 32,2 gives the weights of it thus:
Nepalese Troy Weight and Coinage.
5 dâm are 1 paisa 5 paisa, 1 ani 4 ani 1 suka 2 suka , 1 mohar
2 mohar, 1 takka (= tôla or rupee weight of 174 grs.)
400 dâms to the tôla The whole scale is directly and purely Indian, and should more than probably be referred to the coins represented by the gold and silver jaldlas of Akbar, which were respectively worth 400 and 40 dáms (gold being then to silver as 10 to 1, or nearly so), and weighing practically the same amount, i. e., about a tôla. The gold jalála, - la'l-i-jaldli, or at least one form of itwas in weight or value equal to two round mohars.
To the scale of 96 ratis to the tola should also be referred, I think, the isolated Burmese denomination viss (pêkba, spelt pissa) and its Talaing and Shân equivalents, p'sa (u'sd) and soi, both no doubt representing the word vísa etymologically as well. The SouthIndian viss (vísat), as the eighth part of the South-Indian maund of 25 lbs., has practically always been 3.125 lbs., or thereabouts, and the weight of 100 tickals, being 3.652 lbs., or thereabouts, has been given its name by the Peguan and Burmese traders.
Besides the viss, no Far Eastern commercial weight can be traced in the vernaculars to South India, so far as present information goes, with the doubtful exception of the candaroen. The Malay equivalent is kondari or leindari and the Tamil is kunrimaņi (vulgarly kundrimaan). but it would require a good deal of proving to settle which (if either) came from the other.
That the modern commercial terms, mace and tael, can be traced as far as a Malay origin there can be no doubt, but the further clear reference of them to másha and tóla, to my mind, demands still further research to carry conviction.
As regards the ultimate reference of the commercial term cash to karsha, or better to kárshápana, there is the evidence collected by Yule, Hobson-Jobson, s. v. And so long as one is content to remain in the realm of conjecture, with a view to research in definite directions, the following probabilities may be put forward :
Table of Probable Derivations.
Sanskrit or Prakrit.
Burmese.
Malay.
Talaing.
Far Eastern, Commercial
cash
mat
..
... mks
mace
kyat.
kârshî pana masha karsha tola taka pala visa
tâhil, tail
tel. t'ke, h'ki, b'kò... tickal
pollam w'sâ, p'sa5 . viss
b0(1) ... pêkba ...
The scales given in Wright's Nepal, p. 297, do not seem to be correct. At any rate they do not work out.
* See Blochmann, Ain Akbari, Vol. I. pp. 29 to 33. Gladwin, Ayeon Akbery, Vol. I. Pp. 20 to 27. For the reference of the scale of 100 dáms to the told to the scale of 400 cowries to the ani, vide ante, Vol. XXVI. p. 290 ff. . South-Indian kisu.
* Shao, soi.