TANADAR, THANADAR, s. The chief of a police station (see [TANA]), Hind. thānadār. This word was adopted in a more military sense at an early date by the Portuguese, and is still in habitual use with us in the civil sense.

1516.—In a letter of 4th Feb. 1515 (i.e. 1516), the King Don Manoel constitutes João Machado to be Tanadar and captain of land forces in Goa.—Archiv. Port. Orient. fasc. 5, 1-3.

1519.—"Senhor Duarte Pereira; this is the manner in which you will exercise your office of Tannadar of this Isle of Tyçoari (i.e. Goa), which the Senhor Capitão will now encharge you with."—Ibid. p. 35.

c. 1548.—"In Aguaci is a great mosque (mizquita), which is occupied by the tenadars, but which belongs to His Highness; and certain petayas, (yards?) in which bate ([paddy]) is collected, which also belong to His Highness."—Tombo in Subsidios, 216.

1602.—"So all the force went aboard of the light boats, and the Governor in his bastard-galley entered the river with a grand clangour of music, and when he was in mid-channel there came to his galley a boat, in which was the Tanadar of the City (Dabul), and going aboard the galley presented himself to the Governor with much humility, and begged pardon of his offences...."—Couto, IV. i. 9.

[1813.—"The third in succession was a Tandar, or petty officer of a district...."—Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. ii. 5.]

TANGA, s. Mahr. ṭānk, Turki tanga. A denomination of coin which has been in use over a vast extent of territory, and has varied greatly in application. It is now chiefly used in Turkestan, where it is applied to a silver coin worth about 7½d. And Mr. W. Erskine has stated that the word tanga or tanka is of Chagatai Turki origin, being derived from tang, which in that language means 'white' (H. of Baber and Humayun, i. 546). Though one must hesitate in differing from one usually so accurate, we must do so here. He refers to Josafa Barbaro, who says this, viz. that certain silver coins are called by the Mingrelians tetari, by the Greeks aspri, by the Turks akcha, and by the Zagatais tengh, all of which words in the respective languages signify 'white.' We do not however find such a word in the dictionaries of either Vambéry or of Pavet de Courteille;—the latter only having tangah, 'fer-blanc.' And the obvious derivation is the Skt. ṭaṅka, 'a weight (of silver) equal to 4 māshas ... a stamped coin.' The word in the forms ṭakā (see [TUCKA]) and ṭanga (for these are apparently identical in origin) is, "in all dialects, laxly used for money in general" (Wilson).

In the Lahore coinage of Mahmūd of Ghaznī, A.H. 418-419 (A.D. 1027-28), we find on the Skt. legend of the reverse the word ṭanka in correspondence with the dirham of the Ar. obverse (see Thomas, Pathan Kings, p. 49). Ṭanka or Ṭanga seems to have continued to be the popular name of the chief silver coin of the Delhi sovereigns during the 13th and first part of the 14th centuries, a coin which was substantially the same with the [rupee] (q.v.) of later days. In fact this application of the word in the form ṭakā (see TUCKA) is usual in Bengal down to our own day. Ibn Batuta indeed, who was in India in the time of Mahommed Tughlak, 1333-1343 or thereabouts, always calls the gold coin then current a tanka or dīnār of gold. It was, as he repeatedly states, the equivalent of 10 silver dīnārs. These silver dīnārs (or rupees) are called by the author of the Masālik-al-Abṣār (c. 1340) the "silver tanka of India." The gold and silver tanka continue to be mentioned repeatedly in the history of Feroz Shāh, the son of Mahommed (1351-1388), and apparently with the same value as before. At a later period under Sikandar Buhlol (1488-1517), we find black (or copper) tankas, of which 20 went to the old silver tanka.

We cannot say when the coin, or its name rather, first appeared in Turkestan.

But the name was also prevalent on the western coast of India as that of a low denomination of coin, as may be seen in the quotations from Linschoten and Grose. Indeed the name still survives in Goa as that of a copper coin equivalent to 60 reis or about 2d. And in the 16th century also 60 reis appears from the papers of Gerson da Cunha to have been the equivalent of the silver tanga of Goa and Bassein, though all the equations that he gives suggest that the rei may have been more valuable then.