The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c18.62

c18.62

To Iltutmish however should belong the sole credit of absorbing the existing billon pieces, under the new name of *jital*, as a lower denominational coin to whose weight-scheme, as has been noted above, the *tankah* was adjusted. The *jital* seems deliberately to have been given a lower silver content than its older model; an assay of some specimens revealed approximately 3·6 grains or 2 *ratis* of silver, instead of the 7·8 grains of the *dehlivala*⁴. This enables us to fix its intrinsic value which must have governed its relation with the *tankah*; on the evidence of an assay carried out by Thomas, Wright and Nevill thought a *jital* was valued at 1/12th of a *tankah*. This they have subsequently modified in favour of 1/48, which was, in any case, the *jital*'s exchange value in north India towards the end of the 13th century. On this view, the small silver pieces of Mahmud¹, Balban², and Kaiqubad³, with an average weight of 14·4 grains and called *masha* by Wright, would have the same value as four *jitals*; they might, in fact, have been intended for a four *jital*-piece. From Balban's reign appear a series of bilingual mixed metal pieces whose silver content, being less than that of a *dehliwala*, but more than that of a *jital*, was probably meant to give it an intermediate place in the monetary scale; Wright suggests that its token value represented a two *jital* piece or 1/24 of a *tankah*⁴. It would thus not only fit into, but would also furnish corroborative evidence of, the 48-*jital* *tankah* scheme. Iltutmish's billon currency furnishes an example of what Wright thinks is a three-*jital* piece, i.e., 1/16th of a *tankah*, the ancestor of the modern *anna*⁵. The same value is also indicated by one of Kaiqubad's *jitals* which, containing an average of 8 grains silver per coin, seems to have been meant for the token value of 1/16 of a *tankah*⁶.