And the Pardao was a gold ducat, smaller than the seraphim (see XERAFINE) of
Cairo (gold dinar), but thicker.
The question arises whether the varaha of Abdurrazzak was the double pagoda, of which
there are some examples in the S. Indian coinage, and his partab therefore the same as Varthema’s,
i.e. the pagoda itself; or whether his varaha was the pagoda, and his partab a half-pagoda. The weight
which he assigns to the varaha, “about one mithkal,” a weight which may be taken at 73 grs., does
not well suit either one or the other. I find the mean weight of 27 different issues of the (single) hun
or pagoda, given in Prinsep’s Tables, to be 43 grs., the maximum being 45 grs. And the fact that both
the Envoy’s varaha and the Italian traveller’s pardao contain 20 fanams is a strong argument for their
identity.4
In further illustration that the pardao was recognised as a half hun or pagoda, we quote in a
foot-note “the old arithmetical tables in which accounts are still kept” in the south, which Sir Walter Elliot
contributed to Mr. E. Thomas’s excellent Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of Delhi, illustrated, &c.5
Moreover,
Dr. D’Acunha states that in the “New Conquests,” or provinces annexed to Goa only about 100 years
ago, “the accounts were kept until lately in sanvoy and nixane pagodas, each of them being divided
into 2 pratáps. …” &c. (p. 46, note).
As regards the value of the pardao d’ouro, when adopted into the
Goa currency by Alboquerque, Dr. D’Acunha tells us that it “was equivalent to 370 reis, or 1s 6½d.6 English.”
Yet he accepts the identity of this pardao d’ouro with the hun current in Western India, of which the
Madras pagoda was till 1818 a living and unchanged representative, a coin which was, at the time of
its abolition, the recognised equivalent of 3½ rupees, or 7 shillings. And doubtless this, or a few pence
more, was the intrinsic value of the pardao. Dr. D’Acunha in fact has made his calculation from the
present value of the (imaginary) rei. Seeing that a milrei is now reckoned equal to a dollar, or 50d., we
have a single rei=1/20d., and 370 reis=1s. 6½d. It seems not to have occurred to the author that the rei
might have degenerated in value as well as every other denomination of money with which he has to do,
every other in fact of which we can at this moment remember anything, except the pagoda, the Venetian
sequin, and the dollar.7 Yet the fact of this degeneration everywhere stares him in the face. Correa
tells us that the cruzado which Alboquerque struck in 1510 was the just equivalent of 420 reis. It was
indubitably the same as the cruzado of the mother country, and indeed A. Nunez (1554) gives the same
420 reis as the equivalent of the cruzado d’ouro de Portugal, and that amount also for the Venetian
sequin, and for the sultani or Egyptian gold dinar. Nunez adds that a gold coin of Cambaya, which he
calls Madrafaxao (q.v.), was worth 1260 to 1440 reis, according to variations in weight
and exchange.
We have seen that this must have been the gold-mohr of Muzaffar-Shah II. of Guzerat (1511–1526), the weight of which we learn from E. Thomas’s book. From the Venetian sequin (content of pure gold 52·27
grs. value 111d.8) the value of the rei at 111/420d. will be . … 264d.
From the Muzaffar Shahi mohr (weight 185 grs. value, if pure gold, 392·52d.) value of rei at | 1440 ..... | 0·272d. | | Mean value of rei in 1513 … | 0·268d. |
i.e. more than five times its present value.
Dr. D’Acunha
himself informs us (p. 56) that at the beginning of the 17th century the Venetian was worth 690 to 720
reis (mean 705 reis), whilst the pagoda was worth 570 to 600 reis (mean 585 reis).
These statements,
as we know the intrinsic value of the sequin, and the approximate value of the pagoda, enable us to
calculate the value of the rei of about 1600 at … 0·16d. Values of the milrei given in Milburn’s Oriental
Commerce, and in Kelly’s Cambist, enable us to estimate it for the early years of the last century. We
have then the progressive deterioration as follows:
Value of rei in the beginning of the 16th century. … 0.268d.
Value of rei in the beginning of the 17th century. …
0.16d. Value of rei in the beginning of the 19th century .. 0.06 to 0.066d. Value of rei at present. …
0.06d.
Yet Dr. D’Acunha has valued the coins of 1510, estimated in reis, at the rate of 1880. And Mr.
Birch has done the same.1
The Portuguese themselves do not seem ever to have struck gold pardaos
or pagodas. The gold coin of Alboquerque’s coinage (1510) was, we have seen, a cruzado (or manuel),
and the next coinage in gold was by Garcia de Sá in 1548–9, who issued coins called San Thomé, worth
1000 reis, say about £1, 2s. 4d.; with halves and quarters of the same. Neither, according to D’Acunha,
was there silver money of any importance coined at Goa from 1510 to 1550, and the coins then issued
were silver San Thomés, called also patacõoes (see PATACA). Nunez in his Tables (1554) does not
mention these by either name, but mentions repeatedly pardaos, which represented 5 silver tangas,
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