Page:A History of the Indian Medical Service, 1600-1913 Vol 1.djvu/18

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PREFACE till well on in the nineteenth century that the rupee became the universal standard of reckoning and of payment.

In Bombay, in the seventeenth and early in the eighteenth century, payments were made in Xeraphins or serafins. The word is a corruption of ashrafi, the name of a Persian gold coin, worth about iis. 6d. The Xeraphin, however, was worth only IS. 6d. to is. M. Surat Cons, of 28th Dec, 1702, (quoted in Chapter VI, Vol. I, p. 73), speak of Xeraphins at 2od. each. The rupee gradually superseded the Xeraphin in Bombay about 1710. An entry in the Bombay Cons, of i6th June, 1711, gives the salaries of the medical officers in rupees. A later entry, in the same Cons, of 6th October, 1712, gives one salary in Xeraphins and another in rupees. The word Xeraphins is often written as Xs.

In Madras, up to 1818, the pagoda was the standard coin, whence the phrase " to shake the pagoda tree." In 1818 the rupee was made the standard coin. The pagoda was then worth three and a half rupees, or, with the rupee at 2s. 6d., a little under nine shillings. The pagoda contained forty-two fanams, each fanam was worth eight kas or cash. An entry in the Fort St. David Cons, of 17th Jan., 1697/98, states that the Company's servants are paid at nine shillings to the pagoda. The entries of payments of medical officers' salaries from 1730 to 1750 show them as paid at the same rate, half a year's pay being given as ;^i8 or forty pagodas. The Madras Pay Lists of 1759 and 1770, quoted in Chapter XVIII, Pay, note the pagoda as equalling eight shillings.

In Bengal and in Northern India the rupee was the standard com before the first British settlement. H. H. Wilson states that the rupee was introduced by Sher Shah in 1542. But a coin of substantially the same value was in circulation at least 300 years earlier. Payment in rupees is mentioned in Balasore Cons. of 1676 (quoted in Chapter VIII, Vol. I, p. 102), and in Hugh Cons. of November, 1676. The use of the Murshidabad mint for their own coinage was one of the privileges asked for by and granted to Surman's Embassy to Delhi in iyiS-17 (see Chapter IX,

The earliest British rupee was struck at Bombay m 1677. Many different rupees used to be current, all varying somewhat