Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c8.94

c8.94

Debasement of coin, which leads to decline in weight, may be one cause of the mutability of weight noticeable in Kārshāpaṇa and its subdivisions. It must not, however, be supposed that debasement of coin is the only explanation of this phenomenon. Other causes also must have operated. I may here mention one of these most likely causes, and shall do so by selecting an instance from Mussalman numismatics. Those who have studied Mughal coinage need not be told that Aurangzeb in the earlier part of his reign issued copper Dāms of the heavy type, but that all the Dāms dating from the seventh to the forty-ninth year of his reign weighed much less.¹ This is not, however, an instance of the debasement of the currency as one is apt to suppose on first consideration. The real explanation is furnished by the *Mirāt-i-Ahmadi*, which expressly tells us that the weight of the old Dāms of Aurangzeb was 21 Māshas but that the new Dām weighed only 14 Māshas. In the Mughal period, as most of you know, there was free coinage in all metals so that any individual could bring his bullion to the mint and get it coined by bearing the cost of manufacture and paying seigniorage to government. But soon after the fifth regnal year of Aurangzeb, as the *Mirāt* informs us, the price of copper had suddenly gone up considerably, with the result that neither the state nor the merchants could find it profitable to coin copper pieces of the normal weight, which consequently lessened in quantity. This deficiency of the copper money, which was the principal circulating medium of the poorer classes, was a source of extreme inconvenience to them. With the sanction of the emperor the Dāms were, therefore, reduced in weight, and, as we have just seen, were reduced by no less than seven Māshas. Similar economic exigencies may have necessitated reduction of weight in the Kārshāpaṇa and its token money at different times and in different localities, such as Besnagar, to which I have referred above. And this may be another cause of the multiplicity of weight in this coinage.