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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
and lower denominations of both scales are identical. Secondly, the Siamese scale is practically identical with the Burmese, because the hung is undoubtedly the adenanthera seed, as the ywéji has been seen to be, and both are equally connected with the Indian literary scale. Thirdly, I have called the Siamese scale the Siamese-Cambodian scale. I have done this, because, however little it may be the case now, the old Cambodian scale was identical with the Siamese, a fact which takes the wanderings of the Indian literary scale pretty far East. Indeed, the reason why I said that I was taking the wrong way round historically is, that, in my belief, the Indian literary scale of 320 ruktikás to the pala came into IndoChina vid Malay-land, by way of Cambodia into Siam, and thence into Burma.
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I presume it is generally known, that the Siamese form part of the great Tai Race, or, as the Burmese and through the Burmese we ourselves, call them, the Shans. The Shans, fundamentally affiliated to the Chinese proper, and once a comparatively homogeneous people of some political importance, now consist of a great number of disunited, and in some instances isolated, tribes, spread over a wide region in the Further East. For the present purpose they are useful, as showing in their notions of currency the influences upon them, exercised by the more compact nationalities which have dominated them. Their ideas of currency have been severally coloured, according to situation, by the Burmese, Siamese, and Cambodians, in a way that it has been of great interest to me to observe; and perhaps the most interesting point of all is, that whatever the influence has been, and however much the terms themselves may vary, the denominations used in each sphere of influence can all be stated in terms of each other, point for point, in comparison with what I may now call the Barmo-Siamo-Cambodian scale. And thus they serve to show the continuous spread of the old Indian literary scale to the Mekhong at any rate.
[APRIL, 1899.
Next, I must ask your readers to look round the Malay Archipelago and Peninsula, despite the great and numerous difficulties that must lie in the path of every inquirer in those regions. Imagine a number of semi-civilized and savage tribes, chiefly occupying a very large Archipelago, and they will perceive that two things must be looked for a great variety in the actual weights of the standard denominations themselves, and puzzling differences in the nomenclature thereof. And they will find both beyond all doubt before they have proceeded far. Indeed, so endless are the variations in the actual weights of the denominations, that in order to arrive at any definite idea of the rise of the modern Malayan Troy weight system, one must trust rather to the denominations, than to the actual weights they now represent in various places for various articles of commerce. And that, too, in spite of the difficulties created by the fact, that the weights are stated by travellers, traders and natives, sometimes ir. the vernacular terms, sometimes in the international commercial terms, and sometimes in a mixture of both.
Patience and study have served, however, to unravel even the mad muddle of the Malayan scales, and to bring out clearly in time the following general average table.
DIAGRAM III.
5 kundarf
4 kupong
4 mAyam
4 tahil...
320
make 1 kupong make 1 mayam
... make 1 tâhil make 1 bungkal
Now, the kundart is the candareen, or, in other words, the adenanthera seed, i. e., the conventional raktiká of the Indian literary scale. And thus is brought into line with the general Literary and Further Eastern scales the Malayan scale also.
I have now to consider one more point in this connection. With the advent of the Europeans, having dealings in the ports of the whole of the Far East, there arose at once a necessity, for account purposes, for arriving at some common denominators, to which to be
