________________
AUGUST, 1928)
CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE
149
NOTES ON CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE.
BY SIE RICHARD C. TEMPLE, Br.
(Continued from page 131.) "General Taylor asked the authorities at Patiala, Jind, and Nabha six questions, viz:
(1) The political condition of the coinage. (2) The nature, title and character of the coinage. (3) The annual outturn of the establishment and value of the coinage as compared
with that of the British Government. (4) The process of manufacture and any particulars as to the artificers employed. (5) The arrangement for receiving bullion and the charges (if any) levied for its conver.
sion into coin. (6) The extent of the currency.
"Patiala, as might be expected, gave the best answers, and as regards the first question, we may pass over all the replies, as recapitulating what has been already written herein, except to note that in 1867 Patiala very nearly succeeded in ousting her old coinage for a modern English rupee on the plan that Alwar adopted later, and as Mindôn Min of Burma succeeded in doing for his country abont the same time. Passing on, we find that the Patiala rupees are called Rajashâbî, the Jind rupees Jindia, and the Nabhä rupees simply Nabha.
Only silver, and occasionally gold, is coined. The Patiala rupee weighs 117 máshas of pure silver and is of the full value of a rupee. The weight of the Jind rupee is the same, but its value is only about 12 ands (4 rupee). The Nabha rupee is also of the same weight and is valued at 15 ands (H: rupee).
"The Patiala mohar is a valuable coin, being 104 mdshas of pure gold. Jind does not coin gold, but the Nabha Government sometimes strikes a mohar of 94 máshas of pure gold.
“In none of these States is thero any regular outturn of coinage. Special occasions and sometimes economical necessities oblige the mint to become active by fits and starts. In fact the moneyers only work when necessity drives.' In Jînd and Nabha, royal marriages and great state functions are practically the only occasions when money is coined in any quantity.
“Jînd apparently keeps up no establishment for its mint, but Patiala and NAbha do so. The Patiala establishment consists of a superintendent, a clerk, two assayers, one weigher, ten siniths, ten moneyers, four refiners, and one engraver. The Nabha establishment is on a smaller scale, viz., one superintendent, one assayer, one smelter, one refiner, and one smith. The refining is carefully performed in both cases, and the silver and gold kept up to standard.
"Jind has never received bullion for coining, but Patiala receives both silver and gold, and NAbhå silver. For silver Patiala charges the public 11 per cent., and for gold Rs. 24 per 100 coins, or 17 per cent. Nabhd charges less, only per cent. for coining silver.
"Jind rupees are current only within the Stato, but the Patiala coins find currency both in the State and in its immediate neighbourhood in some quantity; while only a few Nabha coins find their way outside the state.
“The Maler-Kótlå mint issues its coins apparently on precisely the same lines, the rupee going by the name of the Kotla rupee. Extensive frauds on the part of the mint masters, twice detected of late years [ in 1878 ) in fraudulently alloying the silver, has depreciated the value of this rupee to 12 ands ( rupee).
