Chapter TAMARIND-FISH to TANGA of T by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

TANADAR, THANADAR, s. The chief of a police station (see TANA), Hind. thanadar. 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. tank, 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-blane.’ And the obvious derivation is the Skt. tanka, ‘a weight (of silver) equal to 4 mashas … a stamped coin.’ The word in the forms taka (see TUCKA) and tanga (for these are apparently identical in origin) is, “in all dialects, laxly used for money in general” (Wilson).

In the Lahore coinage of Mahmud of Ghazni, A.H. 418–419 (A.D. 1027–28), we find on the Skt. legend of the reverse the word tanka in correspondence with the dirham of the Ar. obverse (see Thomas, Pathan Kings, p. 49). Tanka or Tanga 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 taka (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 dinar of gold. It was, as he repeatedly states, the equivalent of 10 silver dinars. These silver dinars (or rupees) are called by the author of the Masalik-al-Absar (c. 1340) the “silver tanka of India.” The gold and silver tanka con tinue to be mentioned repeatedly in the history of Feroz Shah, 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.

The denomination is also found in Russia under the form dengi. See a quotation under COPECK, and compare PARDAO.

c. 1335.—“According to what I have heard from the Shaikh Mubarak, the red lak (see LACK) contains 100,000 golden tankahs, and the white lak 100,000 (silver) tankahs. The golden tanka, called in this country the red tanka, is equivalent to three mithkals, and the silver tanka is equivalent to 8 has htkañai dirhams, this dirham being of the same weight as the silver dirham current in Egypt and Syria.”—Masalik- al-absar, in Not. et Exts. xiii. 211.

c. 1340.—“Then I returned home after sunset and found the money at my house. There were 3 bags containing in all 6233 tankas, i.e. th e equivalent of the 55,000 dinars (of silver) which was the amount of my debts, and of the 12,000 which the sultan had previously ordered to be paid me, after of course deducting the tenth part according to Indian custom. The value of the