The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c3.13

c3.13

Pay was reckoned in a money of account called a *dām*, of which forty went to the rupee. There were also coins called *dām*; but the *dāms* of account, bearing a fixed ratio to the rupee, must be distinguished as a different thing from the coin, though called by the same name. Here Dr. Horn, 16, is of opinion that the reckoning was made in such a small unit as the 1/40 of a rupee, less to make a grand show with big figures than because the value of the rupee varied. On this head I am of exactly the opposite opinion, for I think that the principal, if not the only object, was to swell the totals and make the pay sound bigger than it really was. That spirit runs through everything done in the East, at any rate in the Indian portion of it, as could easily be shown were it worth while to labour the point further. As for the second reason, I have considered it as well as I am able, not being a currency expert; and it seems to me that with a fixed ratio between the two coins, it was a matter of indifference to the receiver of pay whether the amount was stated in the one or in the other unit of value. The two units being tied together by the fixed ratio, and the disbursements being in fact made (as we know) in rupees, the payee suffered, or did not suffer, equally by either mode of calculation.