The East India Company made little change in the monetary system of the Mogul Empire. In the greater part of India the silver rupee was the standard of value, and the E.I.C. struck Sicca rupees (sikkah, coined) in the name of Shah Alam, the Great Mogul reigning at the end of the eighteenth century. These weighed 192 grains, but they were superseded in 1836 by the present standard of rupee, 180 grains, of which 165 fine, bearing the English sovereign’s head. The rupee is divided for account into 16 annas, each of 12 copper pies, though the coin so called bore until recently the Persian inscription salas pai, one-third of a pie; the real pie, inscribed ek pai, one pie, being the quarter-anna.
There are silver coins of a half, quarter and eighth of a rupee, but no anna coin. The copper or bronze coins are half, quarter and twelfth annas.
The monetary system of the Madras Presidency (the people of which are a different race, speaking Dravidian languages, not the Indo-European languages of which Hindustani is the lingua franca) was different from that of the rest of India. It was a gold-standard country, the monetary unit being the ‘Varahan’ or ‘pagoda,’ a small thick gold coin of 53 grains, reckoned as equivalent to 3-1/2 rupees or nearly 8 shillings. There were also gold Fanams of about 6 grains, and still smaller gold coins, used principally for largesse at festivities.
The Star-pagoda, the usual gold currency, was of button-shape, with a star on the convex surface, a Hindu deity on the flat. It weighed 52-1/2 grains, the same weight as the Roman denarius, the Arabic dinar, and the Venetian zechin, but it was only 19-1/2 carats fine. The E.I.C. coined pagodas of lesser weight, about 46 grains, but of English standard fineness. They also coined silver fanams, 42 being nominally equivalent to the pagoda. These weighed 15 grains, so that they were equivalent to 1/12 of the 180-grain rupee, to 1-1/3 anna, or to 4 copper pysa. So there was in the Madras Presidency a double monetary series, based on the gold pagoda and on the silver rupee, the relative value of these coins being of course inconstant. Gradually during the nineteenth century the gold standard was replaced by silver, the change taking the following order:
1. The Pagoda of 42 fanams of 8 pysa of 4 kásh.
The Rupee of 12 fanams.
2. Then the two-anna piece replaced the fanam, taking its name.
The Rupee of 8 fanams, of 6 pysa, of 4 kásh.
3. The Rupee of 16 annas, of 3 pysa, of 4 kásh.
4. The Rupee of 16 annas of 4 quarter-annas (called 3/4 pysa by the natives) or of 12 kásh improperly called ‘pies.’