Indian Antiquary Vol 42

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 122

118
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[APRIL, 1913.
bull as standards of weight (Plate VI., figs. 4, 5 and 6). These considerations lead to a possible origin for some forms at any rate of the animal models used for weights and currency in the Far East, where the two ideas are still habitually mixed up in the popular mind.
In 1892 I had a plate drawn (ante, Vol. XXVII., p. 141) of Burmese metal weights (alé)51 in the form of animals, which were then still in use in Upper Burma as official standards of the old Burmese Kingdom.62 These weights took the form of chinthé, to, nin elephant), nwadi (bull), and myauk (monkey), besides the common henthase (goose) of the bazaars. Notices of these have been traced in the writings of travellers from 1786 (ante, loc. cit.). About 1881 Carl Bock (Temples and Elephants, p. 159) found old native weights still in use in the form of the "hoong or sacred goose" [i. e., the hentha of Barma), or of an elephant, among the shape and Laos of Upper Siam. I saw this collection and they consisted of counterparts of the standard Burmese weights--hentha, nwadi and myauk (goose, ball and monkey). This looks as if the animal weights had travelled from Burma into Siam.
The chinthé (lion) of Burma became transferred from the weights to the European-minted gold coinage of the late Alompra dynasty, together with the royal cognisance of the peacock and the hare (see Pl. IV., figs. 8 and 10). In the other parts of the Far East, the cock appears on a modern duit ayam (copper cash : Pl. III., fig. 8), and unmistakeably on a very rough coin from Mergui (Pl. V., fig. 5). The goose is seen on a Cambodian coin of 1848 (Pl. III., fig. 10) and on a Tenasgerim weight of 11+ oz. = the penjuru of the tin currency lower down the coast (PI. IV., fig. 11). The to is found on a spelter (tin and lead) coin from Mergui (Pl. III., fig. 9, Pl. V., fig. 3).5*
The Mergui weights and coins had on the reverse debased imitations of Burmese legende, which one of them shows to have been Mahasukham Nagaram (angrammatical Pali).65 This again points to the importation of the animal currency to the Malay Peninsula from Burma, as did the finds of Bock in the case of the Shans of Upper Siam. Such an inference is confirmed by a Plate in Tavernier's Travels, Eng. ed. 1678, I., Pt. II., 6 f., (given ante, p. 103). This was copied by Crawford, Hist. Ind. Archipel., 1820, L., p. 150, and shows a tin coin purporting to come from Perak and Kedah, which, he says weighed 1 oz. = kati or tampang. The obverse has a snake and the reverse some marks that might pass for serpents, bat are more probably a further breaking down of the above mentioned Burmese legend on the coins from Mergui. Plate V., figs. 3 and 4, also shows that the "snake " coin may after all be only * debased or developed" to.
51 All presented to the British Museum. 52 Plate IV. fig. 5 to 9. # One variety of this is called sinago, tho swift of the edible birds' Desta. # Such coins were found being used as gambling tokena in Rangoon in 1899.
- Figu, 9, 10, 11 of P1. III. Are all from Phayre, Internat. Numis Orientalia: Coins of Aracan, Pagu and Barma, 1882. The logend would mean City of great pence. This legend Mahāsukha-nagara seems to refer to Kedah, wbioh on later ooide assumed the Arabio form of Daru'l-aman, Land of peace. Vide Apps. III, infra, where Millies' readings are Dara'l-aman Balad Kadah and Daru'l-aman Kadah (Land of peace, City of Kedah and Land of peace, Kedah) on tin coins of 1741 and 1809. Mr. Blag den tells me that the capital of Kedah was known in the 18th and 14th centuries as Langkasuka, "Land of Peace," name still remembered.
56 A comparison with the imitation Burmese characters on the Morgui coins will show this. See Phayro's PI, IV., fig. 3 and 5