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70 MONEY USED IN PURCHASING DIAMONDS book 11
carats.1 The Portuguese use the same weight name in Goa, but it is then equal to only 5 grains.2
I come now to the kinds of money with which diamonds are purchased in India.
Firstly,
in the Kingdom of Bengal, in the territories of the Raja, of whom I
have spoken, as they are included in the dominion of the Great Mogul,
payment is made in rupees. At the two mines 3 in the
Kingdom of Bijapur, in the neighbourhood of Rammalakota, payment is
made in the new pagodas which the King, being entirely independent of
the Great Mogul, coins in his own name. The new pagoda does not always
bear the same value, for sometimes it is valued at 3 1/2 rupees,4
sometimes more and sometimes less, according as it is raised or lowered
by the state of trade, and according as the moneychangers arrange
matters with the Princes and Governors. At the mine of Kolliir or Gani,
which belongs to the King of Golkonda, payment is .made in new pagodas
of equal value with those of the King of Bijapur. But one has to buy
them sometimes at from 1 to 4 per cent, premium, because they are of
better gold, and because the merchants do not accept others at this
mine.
These
pagodas are made by the English and Dutch, who have obtained from the
King, either by agreement or by force, permission to manufacture them,
each in their own fortress. And those of the Dutch cost 1 or 2 per
cent, more than those of the English, because they are of better
quality, and the miners also much prefer them. But as the majority of
the merchants are influenced by the false reports that the people at
the mine are unsophisticated and almost savages, and that, moreover,
the routes from Golkonda to the mines
1
i. e. 4-36 troy grains. Mangelin in Tamil Manjadi, Telugu Manjali, the
seed of the Adenanthera pavonina, or red sandalwood (Yule, Hobson-Jobson, 553 ; Watt, Economic Diet., i.
107 f.). These weights and their modern equivalents are discussed in
vol. i, Appendix. Elsewhere Tavernier seems to imply that, Rammalakota
being in Bijapur, this mangelin was used there.
2 i. e. 3-962 troy grains.
8 The second mine here referred to was possibly the one mentioned as having been closed. (See p. 61 ».) • I.e. 7s. lOJrf.
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