Indian Antiquary Vol 48

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

Page 154

3150
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ SEPT., 1919
which he calls sometimes Ganze, and sometimes Ganza, and of which he reports that they make Statues and a small Money, which is not stampt with the King's Coin, but which every one has a right to make. In 1726 Valentijn called it "Peguan Gans (a brass mixed with lead." and in 1727 Alexander Hamilton talks of "plenty of Ganse or Lead, whicb passeth all over the Pegu Dominions for Money."75
Lockyer, in his exceedingly intelligent book, Trade in India, 1711, uses an expression which might easily be taken to be a form of ganza. At p. 130 he says "Tin from Pegu, Jahore, etc., in Gants, or small pieces of two or three Pounds, bears the best price. There is another sort in Slabs of 50 to 60.1 each, but that is of less value : 76 We sold one with another for about 91 Tale per Pecull." Again at p. 150 he talks about "Tin in Pigs and Gants." Tempting as it is to make the connection, I feel sure it must be abandoned, and that Lockyer's Gants were the "bundles of block tin " referred to by Terrien de la Couperie at p. xxi, No. 23, of bis Catalogue of Chinese Coins : 77 the derivation of the word being quite separate from that of Ganza. Gants must, I think, be referred to the Malay Gantang and the Indian Ganda on the faith of the following quotations :
GANT. 1554. Also a Candy of Goa, answers to 140 gamtas, equivalent to 15 paraas, 30 medidas it 42 medidas to the paraa. A. Nunes, p. 39 (quoted in Yule, Hobson-Jobson, 8.v. Ganton).78
C. 1596. In going to the Market (at Bantam) you find women sitting by the Palissadoes of the Mesquite or Great Church [Mosque), with Sacks of Pepper, and a Measure called Gantam, which contains about three pounds' weight. Collection of the Voyages of the Dutch E. I. Coy., 1703, p. 187.
c. 1596. They bring [to Bantam] from the Islands of Macassar and Sombaia, a sort of Rice called Brass, and give two hundred Caxas (cash) for the Gantam or Measure, which is three Pounds weight, Holland Weight, Dutch Voyages, p. 196.
c. 1596. A great deal of big Salt of which they buy 800 Gantams for 150,000 Caxas, and sell three Gantams at Bantam for a thousand Caxas. Dutch Voyages, p. 197.
6. 1596. There is another Measure in Java and in the neighbouring Countries, called Gantan, which contains about three pounds of Pepper. ... They have also another Measure called Gedeng," and measure all sorts of grains with it, it contains about 4 pounds. Dutch Voyages, p. 247.
15 See Yule, Hobson-Jobson, s.v. Ganza. Of. Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ed., vol. I, p. 236; vol. II, p. 68, where the word used is calin or callin:
76 Stevens, Guide to E. I. Trade, ed. 1775, says, p. 113, exactly the reverse.
TT Compare the following quotation from the Ying-yai Shing-lan, A.D. 1416 in Indo-China, 2nd Ser., vol. I, p. 244:-"Tin is found in two places in the mountains (of Malacca) and the King has appointed officers to control the mines. People are sent to wash it and after it has been molted, it is cast into small blocks weighing one catti eight taels, or one catti four taels official (Chinese) weight : ten pieces are bound together with rattan and form a small bundle whilst forty pieces make a large bundle. In all their trading transactions they use these pieces of tin instead of money."
78 Yule says (Hobson-Jobson, a.v. Ganton) that this word is "mentioned by some old voyagere as a weight or measure by which pepper was sold in the Malay Archipelago : it is presumably gantang." He is right as to its derivation through gantang, but, as will be seen in the text, it was used for many purposes.
19 This is not the same word as gantam, but is a loose measure for the rice in a double sheaf of straw. Crawford, Indian Archipelago, 1820, I, p. 271; Raffles, Java, 1814, vol. II, Appx. p. clxvf. ; &t p. 336 of vol. I. Raffles writes it geding.