RUPEE' is the name of a silver coin current in India, of the value of 2s. English. The word is a corruption of the Sanskrit riipya, from mina, shape, form, meaning, according to Pan'ini, a coin—not necessarily of silver—on which the shape of a man, according to the ras'ika commentary on this grammarian, is struck; and if this ellipsis of the word man is correct, as it very probably is, the word rupee would be of great numismatic interest, inasmuch as it would prove that even as early as at the time of the grammarian (q.v.) coins existed with a leama-n figure impressed on them. The coin bearing the name of rupee was first struck by Shir Shah, and was adopted by Akbar and his successors; it was of the weight of 175 grains troy, and was considered to be pure; but in the decline of the Mohammedan empire, every petty chief coined his own rupee, varying in weight and value, though usually bearing the name and titles of the reigning emperor. In the reign of Shah Aalam, a great variety of coins bare his name and the years of his succession, until 1773, when they were suppressed in the territories subject to the East India company, and a fupee was struck, called the Sicca rupee, with an inscription on it, which, translated, runs: " The king, Shah Aalam, the defender of the faith of Mohammed, the shadow of the grace of God, has struck this coin, to be current through the seven climes;" and on the reverse: " Struck at Murshida bad, in the 19th year of the auspicious accession." Though rupees were coined also at and finally only at Calcutta, and also at various dates, the place of coinage (the mint of Murshidabad) tind the date just named (the 19th of Shah Aalam's reign) remained unaltered, in order to put a stop to the practice which money-changers had introduced, of levying an arbitrary rate of discount on rupees of different places of coinage and of previous dates, without reference to any actual diminution of weight by wear. Although the Dacca rupee was thus the actual medium of exchange, the com pany's accounts were for a long time kept in a different valuation, or that of the ChaNni, or current rupee, 100 Sicca rupees being reckoned as equivalent to 116 Chalani rupees.
The Sicea rupee served also as a unit of weight-80 Sicca weight being equal to one ser, and 40 sers to one man or maund = 82 lbs. Besides the Sicca rupee, two other rupees were current in the Bengal presidency—the Bewares rupee, which ceased to be struck in 1819, and the Farakhabad rupee. At Madras the rupee of the Nawabs of the Carnatic, originally struck at Arcot, and at Bombay that of the Nawabs of Surat, became the currency of the company. In 1818 she standard of the Sicca and Farak habad rupees. was altered, but their intrinsic value was unaffected, as they continued to have the same amount of fine silver. Other changes of these coins took place— of the latter in 1824, 'of the former in 1833; but in changes the coinage of the com pany was entirely remodeled, and a coin, thenceforth termed the company's rupee, with its proportionate subdivisions, was struck to replace all the former currencies, being of the same weight and fineness throughout, and bearing inscriptions in English, or on one face the head and name of the reigning sovereign of Great Britain and Ireland, and on the reverse the designation of the coin in English and Persian, with the words " The East India Company" in English. 'The latter, of course, have disappeared since India has been placed under the direct government of the English crown. The weight, intrinsic purity, and value of the British currency of these several ecins were till lately.
But as silver is subject, in the London mint, to a seigniorage of nearly 6 per cent, the Loudon miut produce of the rupee, if of full weight (11 dwts. fiue), should be ls. lid. Owing to the depreciation of silver, the value of the rupee has fallen; the hIcca rupee is now quoted only at 2s.