Chapter MOGUL BREECHES to MOHWA of M by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

MOGUL BREECHES to MOHWA

MOGUL BREECHES, s. Apparently an early name for what we call long-drawers or pyjamas (qq.v.).

1625.—“…let him have his shirt on and his Mogul breeches; here are women in the house.”—Beaumont & Fletcher, The Fair Maid of the Inn, iv. 2.


In a picture by Vandyke of William 1st Earl of Denbigh, belonging to the Duke of Hamilton, and exhibited at Edinburgh in July 1883, the subject is represented as out shooting, in a red striped shirt and pyjamas, no doubt the “Mogul breeches” of the period.

MOHUR, GOLD, s. The official name of the chief gold coin of British India, Hind. from Pers. muhr, a (metallic) seal, and thence a gold coin. It seems possible that the word is taken from mihr, ‘the sun,’ as one of the secondary meanings of that word is ‘a golden circlet on the top of an umbrella, or the like’ (Vullers). [Platts, on the contrary, identifies it with Skt. mudra, ‘a seal.’]

The term muhr, as applied to a coin, appears to hav e been popular only and quasi-generic, not precise. But that to which it has been most usually applied, at least in recent centuries, is a coin which has always been in use since the foundation of the Mahommedan Empire in Hindustan by the Ghara Kings of Ghazni and their freedmen, circa a.d. 1200, tending to a standard weight of 100 ratis (see RUTTEE) of pure gold, or about 175 grains, thus equalling in weight, and probably intended then to equal ten times in value, the silver coin which has for more than three centuries been called Rupee.

There is good ground for regarding this as the theory of the system.¹ But the gold coins, especially, have deviated from the theory considerably; a deviation which seems to have commenced with the violent innovations of Sultan Mahommed Tughlak (1325–1351), who raised the gold coin to 200 grains, and diminished the silver coin to 140 grains, a change which may have been connected with the enormous influx of gold into Upper India, from the plunder of the immemorial accumulations of the Peninsula in the first quarter of the 14th century. After this the coin again settled down in approximation to the old weight, insomuch that, on taking the weight of 46 different mohurs from the lists given in Prinsep’s Tables. the average of pure gold is 167·22 grains.²

The first gold mohur struck by the Company’s Government was issued in 1766, and declared to be a legal tender for 14 sicca rupees. The full weight of this coin was 179·66 grs., containing 149·72 grs. of gold. But it was impossible to render it current at the rate fixed; it was called in, and in 1769 a new mohur was issued to pass as legal tender for 16 sicca rupees. The weight of this was 190·773 grs. (according to Regn. of 1793, 190·894), and it contained 190·086 grs. of gold. Regulation xxxv. of 1793 declared these gold mohurs to be a legal tender in all public and private transactions. Regn. xiv. of 1818 declared, among other things, that “it has been thought advisable to make a slight deduction in the intrinsic value of the gold mohur to be coined at this Presidency (Fort William), in order to raise the value of fine gold to fine silver, from the present rates of 1 to 14·861 to that of 1 to 15. The gold mohur will still continue to pass current at the rate of 16 rupees.” The new gold mohur was to weigh 204·710 grs., containing fine gold 187·651 grs. Once more Act xvii. of 1835 declared that the only gold coin to be coined at Indian mints should be (with proportionate subdivisions) a gold mohur or “15 rupee piece” of the weight of 180 grs. troy, containing 165 grs. of pure gold; and declared also that no gold coin should thenceforward be a legal tender of payment in any of the territories of the E.I. Company. There has been since then no substantive change.

A friend (W. Simpson, the accomplished artist) was told in India that gold mohur was a corruption of gol, (‘round’) mohr, indicating a distinction from the square mohurs of some of the Delhi Kings. But this we take to be purely fanciful.

1690.—“The Gold Moor, or Gold Roupie, is valued generally at 14 of Silver; and the Silver Roupie at Two Shillings Three Pence.”—Ovington, 219.

1726.—“There is here only also a State mint where gold Moors, silver Ropyes, Peysen and other money are struck.”—Valentijn, v. 166.

1758.—“80,000 rupees, and 4000 gold mohurs, equivalent to 60,000 rupees, were the military chest for immediate expenses.” —Orme, ed. 1803, ii. 364.

[1776.—“Thank you a thousand times for your present of a parcel of morahs.”—Mrs. P. Francis, to her husband, in Francis Letters, i. 286.]

1779—“I then took hold of his hand: then he (Francis) took out gold mohurs: and offered to give them to me: I refused them; he saíd ‘Take that (offering both his hands to me), ’twill make you great men, and I will give you 100 gold mohurs more.’ ”—Evidence of Rambux Jemadar, on Trial of Grand v. Francis, quoted in Echoes of Old Calcutta, 228.

1785.—“Malver, hairdresser from Europe, proposes himself to the ladies of the settlement to dress Hair daily, at two gold mohurs per month, in the latest fashion with gauze flowers, &c. He will also instruct the slaves at a moderate price.”³—In Seton Karr, i. 119.

1797.—“Notwithstanding he (the Nabob)