Indian Antiquary Vol 57

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

Page 55

MARCH, 1928)
CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE
of the Ocean king, who was in love with him, begged her father to raise a storm to drown his fleet, and thus procure her lover. This being done, the prime minister, who escaped, informed the queen of the death of her husband. She immediately gave out throughout her kingdom that he would be her husband whom the ring would fit. Though numbers tried, it was not till a headman from the hills with his brother and nephew came down, that it was found to fit any onc. It fitted them all three and the queen married the eldest brother, who thus became king. He, in commemoration of his origin, put an ox upon his coins, as also the goad [the trident], the implement of his craft." This accounted for the bull on the three coins above mentioned. Other coins, also found in Arakan, evidently puzzled Latter.
D-I. (6) Historical Coins (including Kings of Arakan). In the same issue of JASB. as that just noticed, p. 232, Phayre had a note on the coins of Arakan. Historical Coins. In this he describes the " legendary ” coinage, meaning by that term apparently, coins with “legends" on them, and then proceeds to remark :-“ It is indeed certain that to coin money is a but lately known art among the Burmese race. The term in their language for coin, dingga, seems not to be a native word, but adopted from the Hindooee luka 36 In the dominions of Ava, coined money is still [1846) unknown. Payments are made by silver ingots weighed out as required."
Following instinctively a world-wide custom, some of the old Arakencse kings copied partially the Musalman coinage obtaining in Chittagong at the time they held that district. The reason was the difficulty of getting a conquered population to accept at face-value coins which are new in appearance and therefore foreign and of doubtful value. Phayre's remarks (op. cit.) on this point are worth repeating here :-" The Arakanese sovereigns no doubt wished to follow the kingly practice existing in Bengal of striking coins in the name of the reigning monarch. We learn from their annals that about the middle of the fifteenth century A.D. they conquered Bengal as far as Chittagong, of which they kept possession for about a century. It was then that they first struck legendary coins. On the obverse of the earliest of these we find the date and the King's names written in Burmese character, together with barbarous attempts at Muhammadan names and titles. These they assumed as being succes. sors of Musalman kings, or as being anxious to imitate the prevailing fashion of India. Indeed there is some reason to believe that Ba-tsau-phyu (Bâzòb'ya], a Buddhist king like the rest, who ascended the throne A.D. 1459, obtained among his own subjects the epithet Kalamasha (the son37 of the Kalama), from having issued a coin with the Muhammadan kulima (kalima, creed) inscribed upon it. The reverse of most of the earlier coins contains unintelligible Persian and Nagari inscriptions. The Arakanese kings were frequently known to their subjects by names and titles different from those which appear on their coins. This circumstance will explain a discrepancy observable between the coin names of Kings given here and the sovereigns of the same period found in the list of Arakanese kings published in the JASB.. vol. XIII, p. 50. The coin date generally coincides with the year of the King's accession to the throne, but in some instances it does not, more than one coinage having been issued in the same reign."
To Capt. C. H. White's account is attached an important letter to the Editor, Arakan Advocate 11892), by an Arakanese barrister with an European education, Htoon Chan, then locally well known. He begins by classifying the Coins of Arakan into four classes ; " 1. Symbolical Coins (those described by Latter above). 2. Coins of Nagari and Persian characters. 3. Coins of Burmese characters on the obverse and Nagari and Persian on the reverse. 4. Coins of Burmese characters." He then remarks in regard to the second class :-" Their period is difficult to determine. They appear to belong to the time during which the country
38 Phayre was right. The Burmese dirigd is a form of the Hindi fakd, tanked. See my many quotations, ante, vol. XXVI, p. 236 ff.
37 Kalama-shåh would, however, mean really, the King of the Kalama or Creed.'