The kopang of the Japanese is simply an oblong plate of gold with the angles rounded off.
In Arabia and the Persian Gulf, the silver real and the copper falus are current ; but the Indian rupee and the Spanish dollar also pass current. In Arabia, the Spanish or German dollar, worth about 4s. 6d., is the silver coin ; but in the ex change with India, 100 dollars range from 212 to 225 rupees. The Indian rupee also passe,s cur rent everywhere. British gold is becoming well known. The copper .pice of India are current, but exchange varies with the supply. Arabia has not any national coinage. 'According to Marsden; it was not until the khalifat. of Abdul Malik, in the year of the Hijira 76 (A.D. 695), that a dis tinct coinage was instituted with a view of super seding the currency of Greek or Byzantine and Persian gold and silver.
The dinar, under the khalifs, was about equal to 10s. 8d. About A.D. 1440-1450, in Ibn Batuta's time, a western dinar wai to an. eastern as 4 to 1 ; and an eastern dinar seems to have been TI,th of a tankha, which, even supposing the tankha of that day to 'be equal to a .rupee of Akbar, would be only 21d. A dinar at Kabul in the early part of the 19th e,entury was so -small that 200 made one abassi, a coin of less value than a shilling.
The' tankha in Ala-ud-Din's time is said to have been equal to 50 jital (a copper coin which some said was equal to a paisa), and in Muhammad Taghalaq's time it was so debased as to be Worth not more than 16 paisa. The tankha appears to be the coin represented by the Modern rupee, and perhaps, when at its proper standard, was about the same value.
- The rupee of Akbar contained 174.6 grains of pure silver, and was divided into 40 dam or paisa (of 191i grains of copper each). The darn was subdivided into 25 jital. Queen Elizabeth's shilling contained 88.8 grains' of pure silver ; so that Akbar's rupee was 'worth ls. Hid. of English motley of his time. Apar's standard remained ahnost unaltered all over the Mogbul dominions, until the breaking up of &clempire in the middle of the 18th century. The upee of India now
contains 176 grains of Pure silver, and exchanges for 64 paisa, containing 100 grains of copper each. Akbar had a four-cornered rupee, called Char-yari by the people, this being a term applied to the four immediate successors of Maliomed, viz. Abu bakr Umar, Usman, and Ali.
The current coin of Persia is the keran, a silver coin of which 209 are equal to 100 rupees, or about Hid. each. The gold toman is worth 10 keran. 50 copper guz are equal to one keran. . The coins of Kadphises, called Kadphises Kor anos, to distinguish him from Kadaphes (Kad phises), the conqueror of Kabul, and those of Kanerki, his successor, have been found through out the whole of Upper India two or three of thein have been obtained from 'Masulipatam, and one from Tanjore. In the Manikyala tope, General Ven tura found shell money, the cowry, the spherical flat ingot, Indo-Scythian and Sassanian coins, all of which had been deposited at the same time. In another tope, opened by General Court, were found Roman denarii of Antony and Julius Casar, and coins of some Roman families associated with Indo-Scythic pieces of Kadphises. In August 1856 there was discovered a pot of very beautiful gold coins of the time of Augustus and other emperori, near Calliempootoor, in the Iyetnpully taluk of Madura.
Symbols.—lu the south of India, the figures of animals, the dog, the fish, a serpent or eel, the lion, the bull, the elephant, the ankus or elephant-goad, also weapons, sword, bow and arrow, a mace, stlainba or poles, were largely used on old coins as symbols. The dog is crouching on fore legs or plays. The fish was the 'ensign of the Pandyan dynasty, but is also found on Buddhist seals. The chakram or wheel, the chaitya, the Ficus religiosa or pipal leaf, also a bow and arrow, a hand, and the swastika cross.
The old Mada and Mukha coins are all of gold, and generally cup-shaped, the reverse convex, the obverse concave, with tine impressions in relief, or with a lotus or padma and chank or shell.