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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES.   CCx111

This, as regards the silver coin, seems tolerably clear from a comparison of Ibn Batuta's statement (as rendered by Defrémery) that " a silver dinar (in Bengal) was worth eight dirhems, and their dirhem was exactly equivalent to the dirhem of silver," with the statement of the illas&Zak(l-Absécr that "the silver tangah of India was equivalent to eight of the dirhems called Ilashtkécni (eight-kcini), these hashtkani dirhems being of the same weight with the dirhems of Egypt and Syria."' For it was the 175 grain piece that represented 64 kanis (and was therefore equivalent to 8 laaslatkanis) and not the 140 grain piece.'

10,000 dinars in gold of India, and the dinar of India is equal to 2} dinars of gold of Maghrib" (iii, 106) .

3. Locality, Dehli. 1000 tangahs = 2500 dinars of Maghrib" (iii, 187).

4. Locality, Dehli.   2000 tangahs of gold" (iii, 264) .

5. Locality, Dehli. Ibn Batuta receives 6233 tangahs as the equivalent of 67,000 — 6700 dinars (iii, 426).

6. Locality, Dehli. The tangah = 2} dinars of Maghrib (Ibid.)

7. Locality, Bengal. The dinar of gold = 2} dinars of Maghrib (iv, 212).

(II.) Dinar, though sometimes applied by Ibn Batista to an Indian gold coin, as we have just seen, is the only name he uses for the standard Indian silver coin. Sometimes the term used is Dinar Direcham, which Defrémery in some instances renders " Dinars of Silver", and in others " Dinars in Dirhems". Sometimes the term used is Dinvnir fizzat (see ii, 373).

8. Locality, Shiraz. 10,000 dinars of silver changed into gold • of Maghrib would be 2500 dinars of gold (ii, 65).

9. Locality, Dehli. 100 dinars of silver = 25 dinars of gold, presumably of Maghrib (ii, 76).

10. Locality, Upper India. 100 dinars = 25 dinars in gold of Maghrib

(ii, 374).

11. Locality, Upper India. " 1000 dinars, the change of which in gold of Maghrib is equal to 250 dinars" (ii, 401).

12. Locality, Sind. Passage about the lak, quoted under No. 2,

13. From Dehli. Mah. Tughlak sends Burhanuddin of Sâgharj a present of 40,000 dinars (iii, 255). Masalak-al-Absar says 40,000 tangahs. T

14. Loc., Dehli. Mahom. ughlak sends the Khalif's son on arrival 400,000 dinars (iii, 262); and assigns Ibn Batuta a salary of 12,000 dinars

(iii, 398). These are evidently silver coins.

15. Locality, Bengal. Passage about the dinar being worth 8 dirhems, quoted in text (iv, 210).

No. 2 asserts in reference to Sind that the gold dinar was equal to 10 silver dinars.

Nos. 9, 10, 11, show that the silver dinar of Dehli was worth one-fourth of the gold dinar of Maghrib.

Nos. 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, show that the tangah of India was a gold coin equal to 2s gold dinars of Maghrib, and that Ibn Batuta asserts this equally in reference to Sind, Dehli, and Bengal. And, from the combination of these last two deductions, again the gold tangah = ten silver dinars.

Mr. Thomas warns me that the passage from Ibn Batuta about the dirhem of silver is very obscure; and indeed he has interpreted it in his pamphlet on the Bengal coinage in quite a different sense. But the passage from the Mas~,lak-al-Absar appears to be free from obscurity, and to have substantially the same meaning as the version of Defrémery; which is surely an argument of some weight in favour of the latter.

2 Yet the existence of the latter piece perhaps explains the alternative statement (alluded to at p. 440) that the silver dinar of India was equivalent to 6 dirhems only. The 140 grain piece would in fact be equivalent to 6.4.

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