The expressions employed by the Burmese gold smiths in declaring the quality of bullion, require a knowledge of the Burmese numerals, and a few other words.
The usual weight of the small lumps of silver current in the place of coin, is from twenty to thirty tikals (thirty or forty toles) ; they bear a variety of names from their quality and appear ance, the figures given by the action of the fire upon a thick brown coating of glaze (of the oxides of lead and antimony) answering in some degree the purpose of a die impression.
Ban signifies pure or touch, and is the purest obtainable of the Burmese process of refinage. The word ban is synonymous with the bani of the Ayin-i-Akbari. Batman is the Indian name of the touch-needles used in roughly valuing the precious metals.
Kharoobat, shelly or spiral circled, is applied to a silver cake, with marks upon its surface, pro duced by the crystallization of the lead scoria in the process of refincinent It is supposed to de note a particular fineness, which by Burmese law ought to be ten-ninths yowet-nee in value, i.e. nine tikals of kharoobat pass for ten of yowet-nee silver, or it should contain nineteen and a quarter ban and three-quarter copper.
Yowet-nee, red-leafed flowers, or star silver, is so named from the starry appearance of the melted litharge on its surface. Yowet is a corruption of Rowek, leaf, and the word is sometimes written by Europeans, rowanee, rouni, rougahnee, etc. Yowet-nee is the Government standard of Ava, and contains by law eighty-five ban and fifteen alloy per cent Taking it at nine-tenths of purity of kharoobat, which last is 94'6 touch, its quality will be 85.2 fine ; which closely accord with the legal value. The average of 60,000 tolas of yowet nee in an Ava remittance, turned out two dwt. worse (90.8); bat there was a loss of tnore than 1 per cent. in melting, from the exterior scoria.
Dain, the tnost cotnmon form of Ava bullion met witlt in circulation, is so called from an assess ment levied, during the king's reign, upon villages and horses ; (lain signifying a stage or distance of two miles. These cakes weigh from twenty to thirty tikals each. Their prescribed legal quality is 10 per cent. better than yowet-nee, which puts this species of silver on a par with kharoobat. In ptactice, however, the quality varies from 1 to 10 per cent. better (five better to thirteen and a
half worse) than Calcutta standard. The average of fifty-two lakhs of dain turned out three penny weight s better.
The following will serve as examples of the mode of valuing bullion :— Dain ko-moo,det ia dain 9 per cent. better. Nga-rnoo-det, 5 per cent. better. Yowet-nee, standard (85 touch).
Kyat-ge or ta-tshay-ge, one tikal or tenth of alloy (meaning one-tenth weight of alloy added to standard).
Kyouk-tshay uga-kyat-ge, six tens, five tikals alloy (meaning 60 per cent. of alloy added). Gyan, half yowet-nee (and half alloy).
Go/(1.—The purity of gold is expressed by moss or tenths only ; ten moss, tshay moo (100 touch), being esteemed pure gold.
Ring's gold, or standard, is called ka-moo-ta pe-le-yowe (nine moss, one pe, four seeds), or nine and three-quarter moss fine.
Merchant's gold is ko-moo-ta-be, nine and a half moss fine. Gold mohurs are called eight and a half moss fine by the Ava assayers.
Bactria.—In the reign of Antiochus it., the third of the Seleucidm, Theodotus, the governor of Bactria, revolted and established an independent tnonarchy; his capital was the modern Balkh, and his extensive kingdom included parts of Kabul, Khorasan, and Bokhara. By aid of their coins, the names of nine of their princes have been broug,lit down to us. Their coins have been dis covered at Surapura and Mathura, between Agra and Etawa, and others in the Panjab. Indeed, both Grecian and Persian coins are met with frequently in India. General Ventura and Sir Alexander Burnes collected many Greek coins in ancient Bactria and the Panjab. Major Tod dis covered one of Apollodotus and one of Menander Mathura.
Kashmir has the Pookta rupee.
Cash or Kas, was a small coin current in South ern India till early in the 19th century ; twenty cash being equal in value to four fulus. Kas may be a corruption of the Sanskrit word karsha, which is mentioned in Colebrooke's Essay on Indian Weights, as the same with the word pan. A karsha, or eighty raktika (rati) of copper is called a pana or karsha-pana. It is now the eightieth part of a pan, but the simple word is all that can be identified as having survived the changes of systems. Accordin,g to the old Madras system, accounts were kept in star pagodas, fanams, and kas,-8 kas = 1 fanant, 336 kas = 42 (silver) fan ants = 1 pagoda.