The travels of Ludovico de Varthema in Egypt, Syria, Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix, in Persia, India, and Ethiopia, A.D. 1503 to 1508 by John Winter Jones George Percy Badger

Author:John Winter Jones, George Percy Badger [John Winter Jones, George Percy Badger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317013235
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2017-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Gold Coins (with alloy).

Gold Coins.

Varâha = 2 Dinârs, Kopeki.

… . … .

Pertab = a Varáha.

Pardao … …

Fanam = 1–10th of a Pertab. Pure Silver.

Fanom = 1–20th of a Pardao. Silver.

Tar = th of a Fanom. Copper.

Tare = 1–15th of a Fanom. Copper.

Djitel = rd of a Tar.

Cas = 1–16th of a silver Tare, (equal to a Venetian quattrino.)

The Varáha and the Half Varáha, called Pertab or Pardao, was the Hun of subsequent Mussulman writers and the Pagoda of Europeans, the latter a Portuguese appellation derived from the pyramidal temple generally depicted on one side of it. In ’Abd er-Razzâk’s Varâha and Pertab we have, consequently, the Single and Double Pagoda of after times. Varthema omits all mention of the Varâha, but as he gives twenty Fanams to the Pardao, while ’Abd er-Razzâk allows only ten, his Pardao was probably identical with the Varáha or Double Pagoda. Hence, it appears that the gold coinage of the Bijayanagar state had undergone no material change in the half century intervening between the visits of the two travellers.

The silver coinage must have fluctuated considerably, for whereas ’Abd er-Razzâk gives only six Tars to a Fanam, Varthema allows fifteen. Probably, the Tar of the latter was of a baser metal; that of the former is described particularly as being “cast in pure silver.”

There is a still greater difference in the copper money of the two travellers, quite sufficient, indeed, to lead to the inference that the Djitel and the Cas were different coins; but as I am quite unlearned in Numismatics, I must leave these discrepancies to be solved by others. Prinsep affords but scanty assistance relative to the old Hindu coinage of the Carnatic.

It deserves to be noticed that neither ’Abd er-Razzâk nor Varthema mentions the Cowrie as forming part of the currency. Ibn Batûta specifies it under the Arabic name of Wada’, remarks that it was collected in the Maldive Islands where it passed for money, and was sent in largē quantities to Bengal, where it was also current instead of coin. Lee’s Translation, p. 178.

Nicolò de’ Conti’s account of the Indian currency in his time is very loose and unsatisfactory. He says: “In some parts of anterior India, Venetian ducats are in circulation. Some have golden coins, weighing more than double of our florin, and also less, and, moreover, silver and brass money. In some places pieces of gold worked to a certain weight are used as money.” India in the Fifteenth Century, ii. p. 30.

1 This is, undoubtedly, the Dormapatam of Hamilton, a harbour near the Tellicherry river, a little to the northward of that town, which latter I presume to be the place which Varthema indicates. Barbosa calls it “Termapatani,” and describes it as situated on a river with two outlets to the sea, inhabited chiefly by Mapuleres (Moplahs,) who are great merchants, and as the limit of the kingdom of Cannanore in the direction of Calicut. (Ramusio, vol. i. p. 335.) “The neighbouring country is highly productive, the low lands producing annually two, and in some places three, crops of rice in the year.

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