On the coins of the Parthian , Sassauian, Kan erki, Bactrian, Persian, Macedonian, Syrian, Indo Scythic or Buddhist rulers are Greek or Pehlavi inscriptions, several of them in both languages. The coins have been found of upwards of thirty Bactro - Indian rulers whose names were not Grecian, but who used Greek on their coins. They have been described in Prinsep's Antiquities, Wilson's Ariana Antigua, and Bactrian Coins by Edward Thomas. The larger number are known as thd Azes series, and the Kadphises and Turushka series.
The Hindu coins of the Andhra, Rajputana, Canauj, Indrapra,stha and perhaps Magadha or Behar rulers, are subLequent to Alexander's in vasion. The earliest forms in use in India and Central Asia were adopted from the Bactrian Greeks about B.C. 200. The oldest extant arc the group of the Sah dynasty, B.C. 180 or 170 to about B. C. 50.
The Arabian khalifs and the governors of Persia on their COinfi used Pehlavi characters, and subse quently the Kufic. Their coins have been found struck at Balkh, Basra, Darabjird, Herat, Kerman, Khuzistan, Merv, Mery - ul - Rud, Nahr (van) Seistan, and Yezd. .
The capital coins of Delili, from the thne of Altamsh (A.D. 1211-1236) to the accession of Mu hammad Taghalaq (A.D. 1325), were a gold and silver piece of equal weight, approximating to a standard of 175 grains troy (properly 100 rati). These coins appear to have been officially termed respectively Sikka and Filizzat, but both seem eventually to have had-the popular name of Tan-khwah. Sikka, a word of Hebrew origin, in India originally appears to have been a die, and applied to the coin struck. At an early date the word gave a name to the Zecca or Cecca, or mint, of the Italian Republics ; thence to the Zecchino or Cecchino which issued therefrom, and in this shape the word travelled back to the East, where the term Chickeen or Chick survived to our own day, as a comprehensive Anglo-Indian expression for the sum of four rupees. Filizzat means metallic.' The coinage of British India is regulated by Acts ii. and xvii. of 1835 and xii. and xiii. of 1862. Acts xiii. of 1836 and xiii. of 1814 de clared that Simi rupees, andl3enares, Farrakhabad, and Trim'lee rupees, are not a legal tender. Other Acts aro xxxi. of 1837, xxi. of 1838, vi. of 1847,
and xi. of 1844.
The silver coins coined and current in British India are the silver rupee of 180 grains, with its portions in half, quarter, and eighth.
By Act xxi. of 1835, the copper coinage consists of a double pice or half anna, weighing 200 grains troy, a quarter anna or pice of 100 grains, a half pice or one-eighth of anna of 50 grains, and a pie, being 1.12 of anna or one-third of a pice, 33A grains troy. The silver fractions and the copper coins are legal tender for fractions of a rupee. Gold has not been coined in the mints of India since the early part of the 19th century. Till then, the gold mohur, value 16 rupees, and the pagoda or !IUD, value 3i rupees, were current.
All the people of the east coast of Africa, Southern India, Siam, and Japan have the cowry shell, Cyprma moneta, for small change; and the radical character in the Chinese for silver, money, riches, precious stones, expense, is poei,' or shell. Tavernier found pieces of twisted metal wire, called I.ari (from the province of Lar, in Persia), current on the Malabar coast ; and Thunberg likewise saw them current in Ceylon ; and Knox tells of a coin (p. 107) 'like a fish-hook.' These have a resem blance to the Celtic rings of Britain and to the oboloi of the Greeks, which were kabab-skewers, (oboloi)ei3oXat, a handful of which made a drachma, from 3pcirriftn, to grasp with the hand.
• In assay reports from the Bombay mint in 1852 ott Panjab coins, the average of 190 old Mo}nuke° rupees was equal to 90.662 Company's rupees ; that of 190 new was 88.792 ; 190 Gondashai rupees averaged equal to 78.961 ; 190 Jcobanshai, equal to 94.781 ; and 190 Nanakshai, equal to 92-037 Company's rupees. 190 old Farrakhabad rupees averaged 98.837, and 190 new, equal to 98-817 Company's rupees. 90 K hyrpur rupees averaged 87.123 Company's rupees, and 98 Nadri rupees 106-558 Company's rupees.
Southern India had a coinage of gold, and a small coinage of silver and copper, under the Hindus prior to the Mahomedan rule, and the maharajas of Travancore still coin in gold.
The Mahomedan silver (rnpa) rupee was first struck at Dehli about A.D. 1541, in the time of Sher Shah, but was not made current in the south of India till 1651.