Indian Antiquary Vol 42

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

Page 189

JULY, 1913.)
THE OBSOLETE MALAY TIN OURRENCY
181
THE OBSOLETE TIN CURRENCY AND MONEY OF THE
FEDERATED MALAY STATES. BY SIR E. C. TEMPLE, BART. (Continued from p. 159.) APPENDIX III.
Extracts from Millies, Recherches sur les Monnaies des Indigènes de Malaie. La Haye, 1871.
(Translated). 1. pp. 180 ff. Beaulieu is, I think, the first to mention the coins of Kedab : “They cast (says he) money somewhat of the material of French sous, of a little better alloy however, which they call tras, 32 being worth a dollar. They (the people) coant by taels (tahil), but a tael there is worth four of the Achin (tael)."95
The name tras or teras for a coin is not otherwise known th me, but I think it must be explained by tra, stamp, mark, which Marsden quotes in the term tra timah, lead (or tin) marked (to give it currency).
Mr. [J. R.] Logan, Journal of the Indian Archipelago, Singapore, 1851, p. 58, says,36 in -1850, that the native coin is the tra, a suall round piece of tin, with a hole in the centre, of which 160 make a tali and 8 tali are worth a dollar.
Tavernier is the very first to publish some coins of the King of Cheda (as he writes the ordinary name Quedah) and Pera." In the second part of his work (Les six Voyages de Jean Baptiste Tavernier, Paris, 1679, Pt. II. p. 601,37 he says that the King struck no other coin than of tin," and he gives on the accompanying plate under Nos. 1 and 2 the "figure of a great piece of tin ..." It is the only specimen of the celebrated traveller's collection which I have unearthed in the Musée Numismatique of the Bibliothéque Impériale at Paris. I give a drawing of it as I saw it, but it has suffered much daring these two centuries,38 The piece is octagonal with two lines in relief parallel to the edge. Between these lines there are some dots. There is no hole in the middle, but a small square, which Phayre thought to be a rough image of the chaitya on the ancient Buddhist coins, with a central chamber for relics (1). Crawfurd, who copied without remark Tavernier's coin, thought that this square represented a hole, and had the coin engraved with a hole on the obverse, but without a hole on the reverse 139 Round the square are some characters which I have not been able to decipher. The reverse, which has some lines in high relief, parallel to the edge, with larger dots between the lines, bears in the drawing of Tavernier the figure of a serpent in the field.
There is in the same Museum a piece of tin of a similar type to the above specimen, with nearly similar characters, but it is round in form, and has on the reverse a figure which resembles a lotus flower. 10
Despite the authority of Tavernier, who, however, did not visit the Malay Peninsula himself, I doubt whether bis coin belongs to Kedah or Perak. Not only is it unlike any of the known
35 Relation de divers Voyages curieua, eto. Paris, 1666, Part II., P-83. Beaulieu is probably here contrast. ing the difference betwoon the silvor standard of Kedah and the gold standard of Achin.
28 This is from a footnote. 31 Vide page 6 of the English Translation of 1678. See ante, p. 30.
Plate XXII, fig. 280. 39 Hist. of Ind. Archipel. I. p. 258, plato 6 M. de Chaudoir, Recueil de monnaies de la Chine, St. Petersburg, 1842, has also repeated the obverse (PI. LIX, No. 26), but by a mistake of his in the catalogue and on p. 79 we find after Raffles" instead of "after Orawfurd."
4. Phayre gives a drawing of a similar piece of money, without explaining the legend (Pl. XVI. No. 6).