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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 4, p. 515.

-. --I /'ITrTDBT' r? A X -rr - X l--l- XVI] LUCtA VL-C 1 /ilU IAILr1 515 Khafi Khan records in 1694 that 'some rupees which the English had coined at Bombay with the name of their impure king' had displeased Aurangzeb. In i686 James II authorized the Company to issue at all their forts copies of current native coins, on condition that they maintained the proper weight and fineness. In 1717 Farrukh Siyar granted the first permission to coin his money at Bombay; and in I742 permission was given to coin imitations of Arcot rupees, which were issued at first from Fort St. Georgel and later on at Calcutta, and also by the French at Pondicherry. The Calcutta mint was first recognized by the Nawab of Bengal in 1757 ; and soon after the battle of Buxar, in 1764, the Nawab's mints at Patna, Dacca, and Murshidabad were closed, but coins continued to be struck by the Company at these places as well as at Calcutta. The Benares mint was taken over about I786, and that at Farrukhabad about I803. Four main denominations of rupees gradually replaced the old miscellaneous coinages. The Murshidabad rupee, of the nineteenth year of the reign of Shah Alam, was adopted for the coinage of the Company's Province of Bengal and became the sikka rupee2 of the Calcutta mint, which weighed I79 - grains and contained 175.9 grains of pure silver. This was the only British coin which retained the full value of the old Mughal system; in the remaining cases deterioration had progressed some way before it was arrested by the arrangements introduced by the Company. The Surat rupee, which was adopted as the currency of the Bombay Presidency, contained I64-7 grains of pure silver. The Arcot rupee had a weight of I66-5 grains pure when first coined at the mint of Fort St. George. The Lucknow rupee struck by the Wazir of Oudh had deteriorated to i65-2 grains pure when it was adopted as the standard of the Farrukhabad mint. The sikka rupee was the principal stan- dard of value, but in Bengal and Bombay accounts were usually kept in what were called 'current' rupees. The 'current' rupee was only a denomination of account, representing the estimated value of the standard coin after making an allowance for wear. A variety of gold coins were current during this period: for instance, the gold mohur of Bengal; the old Bombay mohur and the Bombay gold rupee; various gold pagodas of ' Copper coin made in Birmingham was used in Southern India towards the end of the eighteenth century. 2 The word sikka means a die and hence coin. The term sikka rupee refers probably to newly coined money, as distinguished from sonaut, or coin of past years 'sanl :d). L12