Indian Antiquary Vol 57

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 173

August, 1928
C URRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE
151
"The above abstract has much interested me because I think I can throw light on its subject. A paper will be shortly published in this Journal illustrating my collection of the coins of the modern Panjab Native Chiefs.62 All these coins are now in the British Museum. The modern Panjab Native Chiefs who are entitled to coin money are Patiala, Jind, Nábha und Maler-Kötla. They obtained the right in the last quarter of the XVIIth century. originally from Ahmad ShAh Abdali (Durrani) Afghan conqueror of Dehli. Patiala, Jind and Nabha ure Sikhs : Malêr-Kôțla Afghan. They all coined as independent Chiefs, and used the coin of Ahmad Shah of his fourth year, i.e., of A.D. 1751, exactly as it stood. From that day to this there has been no change in the die beyond a mark, as the reigning Chief's special mark or crest. A gold coin struck for me at the mint at Patiala in 1884 in my presence, bore the date 1751, i.e., year 4 of Ahmad Shah.
"The only attempt to vary the die has been made by Nabha, which State dates its coins by the Vikrama Samvat on the obverse, and uses the couplet adopted by the Sikhs of Lahor in the days of Ahmad Shah. The reverse bears the date, Sanh-s-jalús 4.'
"I once had a set of gold mohars from the Rajput (Hindu) State of Jaipur, purporting to have been struck during each year of Bahadur Shah, the last emperor of Dehli (1838– 1857 A.D.). But Jaipur was at no period of Bahadur Shah's reign under his suzerainty, but was more under British suzcrainty than any other Rajput State. The fact is that the Rajas used the Dehli coin as a convenience. The legends contained no record of real historical or political facts.
"In a letter to me, the late Mr. Gibbs, a good authority on such subjects, said that the same adaptation of anachronistic coins to local uses was the universal rule among the native states in Kachh.
" In Burma King Mindôn Min (1852-1878 A.D.) established a mint, indenting on London and Calcutta for his dies. This was about A.D. 1870, but his earlier coins all bear date, Burmese era 1214=A.D. 1852. All in Mandalay tell me that Mindôn Min used the peacock as his crest, and his son, Thibaw Min (1878-1885 A.D.) whom the English deposed, used the lion (or dragon). But I have 'lion' coins dated 1214=A.D. 1852. I am told by a man, who was once employed in the mint, that this was because the Burmans would sometimes use the reverse die of one coin with the obverse die of another. It is also doubtful whether the Panjab Chiefs really coined before Samvat 1820 = A.D. 1763, though their coins bear date A.D. 1751.
“The coins of the Buddhist kings of Arakan bore Muhammadan titles and designations, and even the kalima, long after the country ceased to be connected with the Muhammadan Kings of Bengal (Phayre's History of Burma, p. 78). The bistory of the early British coinage in India strongly exhibits the same falsification of facts, and is described by Prinsep as an unhappy tissue of misstatements as to names, places, and dates' (Useful Tables, Pt. I, p. 4).
“The inference therefore is that anachronisms are the rule, not the exception, in the coinage of Minor Oriental Mints."
In editing some of my father's travels (Hyderabad, Kashmir, Sikkhim and Nepal, 1887, vol. II, pp. 75-76) I found the following passage : "In the afternoon we went to see the Maharaja's mint at Srinagar, Kashmir) on the banks of the Nahari Mar. The building and the whole workshop were very rude. The process of coining was as follows: The silver and the alloy of base metal were first melted and fused. A piece of the required weight was then separated, made as nearly round as a rough hand could make it, and struck with a hammer over a die. Thus was a Rupoe, worth about 10 annas of the East India Company's money, produced. Precisely this same process is followed to this day at the Patiala and other ininte of the native States of the Panjab."
In 1891 there is an informing article in the Journal of the Society of Arts (vol. XXXIX, No. 2022, Aug. 21, pp. 775ff.) on the Mints of Hindustan in the 16th Century by Arthur Wingham.
% That is, the article just quotod,