The Hindustani word rupayā (रुपया) is derived from the Sanskrit word rūpya (रूप्य), which means "wrought silver, a coin of silver",[1] in origin an adjective meaning "shapely", with a more specific meaning of "stamped, impressed", whence "coin". It is derived from the noun rūpa (रूप) "shape, likeness, image".
The history of the rupee traces back to Ancient India circa 3rd century BC. Ancient India was one of the earliest issuers of coins in the world,[2] along with the Lydian staters, several other Middle Eastern coinages and the Chinese wen. The term is from rūpya, a Sanskrit term for silver coin,[3] from Sanskrit rūpa, beautiful form.[4]
Arthashastra, written by Chanakya, chief adviser to the first Maurya emperorChandragupta Maurya (c. 340–290 BCE), mentions silver coins as rūpyarūpa, other types including gold coins (rūpya-suvarṇa), copper coins (tāmrarūpa) and lead coins (sīsarūpa) are mentioned. Rūpa means form or shape, example, rūpyarūpa, rūpya– wrought silver, rūpa– form.[5][6][7] This coinage system continued more or less across the Indian subcontinent well till 20th century.
In the intermediate times there was no fixed monetary system as reported by the Da Tang Xi Yu Ji.[8]
During his reign from 1538/1540 to 1545, Sher Shah Suri of the Sur Empire set up a new civic and military administration and issued a coin of silver, weighing 178 grains, which was also termed the Rupiya.[9][10] Suri also introduced copper coins called dam and gold coins called mohur that weighed 169 grains (10.95g).[11] The use of the rupee coin continued under the Mughal Empire with the same standard and weight, though some rulers after Mughal Emperor Akbar occasionally issued heavier rupees.[12][13]
The European powers started minting coinage as early as mid-17th century, under patronage of Mughal Empire. The British gold coins were termed Carolina, the silver coins Anglina, the copper coins Cupperoon and tin coins Tinny. The coins of Bengal were developed in the Mughal style and those of Madras mostly in a South Indian style. The English coins of Western India developed along Mughal as well as English patterns. It was only in AD 1717 that the British obtained permission from the Emperor Farrukh Siyar to coin Mughal money at the Bombay mint. By early 1830, the British had become the dominant power in India and started minting coinage independently. The Coinage Act of 1835 provided for uniform coinage throughout India. The new coins had the effigy of William IV on the obverse and the value on the reverse in English and Persian. The coins issued after 1840 bore the portrait of Queen Victoria. The first coinage under the crown was issued in 1862 and in 1877 Queen Victoria assumed the title the Empress of India. The gold silver ratio expanded during 1870–1910. Unlike India, Britain was on the gold standard.
The 1911 accession to the throne of the King-Emperor George V led to the famous "pig rupee". On the coin, the King appeared wearing a robe with the imprint of an elephant. Through poor engraving, the elephant looked like a pig. The population was enraged and the image had to be quickly redesigned. Acute shortage of silver during the First World War, led to the introduction of paper currency of One Rupee and Two and a half Rupees. The silver coins of smaller denominations were issued in cupro-nickel. The compulsion of the Second World War led to experiments in coinage where the standard rupee was replaced by the "Quaternary Silver Alloy". The Quaternary Silver coins were issued from 1940. In 1947 these were replaced by pure Nickel coins. The Monetary System remained unchanged at One Rupee consisting of 64 pice, or 192 pies.
In India, the "Anna Series" was introduced on 15 August 1950. This was the first coinage of the Republic of India. The King's Portrait was replaced by the Ashoka's Lion Capital. A corn sheaf replaced the Tiger on the one Rupee coin. The monetary system was retained with one Rupee consisting of 16 Annas. The 1955 Indian Coinage (Amendment) Act, that came into force with effect from 1 April 1957, introduced a "Decimal series". The rupee was now divided into 100 'Paisa' instead of 16 Annas or 64 Pice. The "Naye Paise" coins were minted in the denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 Naye Paise. Both the Anna series and the Naye Paise coins were valid for some time. From 1968 onwards, the new coins were called just Paise instead of Naye Paise because they were no longer naye(new).
With high inflation in the sixties, small denomination coins which were made of bronze, nickel-brass, cupro-nickel, and aluminium-bronze were gradually minted in aluminium only. This change commenced with the introduction of the new hexagonal 3 paise coin. A twenty paise coin was introduced in 1968 but did not gain much popularity. Over a period, cost-benefit considerations led to the gradual discontinuance of 1, 2 and 3 paise coins in the 1970s. Stainless steel coinage of 10, 25 and 50 paise, was introduced in 1988 and of one rupee in 1992. The very considerable costs of managing note issues of Rs 1, Rs 2, and Rs 5 led to the gradual coinisation of these denominations in the 1990s.
East Africa, Arabia, and Mesopotamia
In East Africa, Arabia, and Mesopotamia, the rupee and its subsidiary coinage was current at various times. The usage of the rupee in East Africa extended from Somaliland in the north to as far south as Natal. In Mozambique, the British India rupees were overstamped, and in Kenya, the British East Africa Company minted the rupee and its fractions, as well as pice.
The rise in the price of silver immediately after the First World War caused the rupee to rise in value to two shillings sterling. In 1920 in British East Africa, the opportunity was then taken to introduce a new florin coin, hence bringing the currency into line with sterling. Shortly after that, the florin was split into two East African shillings. This assimilation to sterling did not, however, happen in British India itself. In Somalia, the Italian colonial authority minted 'rupia' to exactly the same standard and called the pice 'besa'.
The Indian rupee was the official currency of Dubai and Qatar until 1959, when India created a new Gulf rupee (also known as the "external rupee") to hinder the smuggling of gold.[14] The Gulf rupee was legal tender until 1966, when India significantly devalued the Indian rupee and a new Qatar-Dubai riyal was established to provide economic stability.[14]
Straits Settlements
The Straits Settlements were originally an outlier of the British East India Company. The Spanish dollar had already taken hold in the Straits Settlements by the time the British arrived in the 19th century. The East India Company tried to introduce the rupee in its place. These attempts were resisted by the locals, and by 1867 when the British government took over direct control of the Straits Settlements from the East India Company, attempts to introduce the rupee were finally abandoned.
Tibet
Until the middle of the 20th century, Tibet's official currency was also known as the Tibetan rupee.[15]
Denominations
The original silver rupee, .917 fine silver, 11.66 grams (179.9 grains; 0.375 troy ounces),[citation needed] was divided into 16 annas, 64 paise, or 192 pies. Each circulating coin of British India, until the rupee was decimalised, had a different name in practice. A paisa was equal to two dhelas, three pies, or six damaris. Other coins for half anna (adhanni, or two paisas), two annas (duanni), four annas (a chawanni, or a quarter of a rupee), and eight annas (an athanni, or half a rupee) were widely in use until decimalization in 1961. (The numbersadha, do, chār, ātha mean respectively half, two, four, eight in Hindi and Urdu.[16]) Two paisa was also called a taka, see below.
Decimalisation occurred in India in 1957 and in Pakistan in 1961. Since 1957 an Indian rupee is divided into 100paise. The decimalised paisa was originally officially named naya paisa meaning the "new paisa" to distinguish it from the erstwhile paisa which had a higher value of 1⁄64 rupee. The word naya was dropped in 1964 and since then it is simply known as paisa (plural paise).
The most commonly used symbol for the rupee is "₨". India adopted a new symbol (₹) for the Indian rupee on 15 July 2010. In most parts of India, the rupee is known as rupaya, rupaye, or one of several other terms derived from the Sanskrit rūpya, meaning silver.
Ṭaṅka is an ancient Sanskrit word for money. While the two-paise coin was called a taka in West Pakistan, the word taka was commonly used in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), alternatively for rupee. In the Bengali and Assamese languages, spoken in Assam, Tripura, and West Bengal, the rupee is known as a taka, and is written as such on Indian banknotes. In Odisha it is known as tanka. After its independence, Bangladesh started to officially call its currency "taka" (BDT) in 1971.
Currently in India (from 2010 onwards), the 50 paise coin (half a rupee) is the lowest valued legal tender coin. Coins of 1, 2, 5, and 10 rupees and banknotes of 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, and 2000 rupees are commonly in use for cash transaction.
Large denominations of rupees are traditionally counted in lakhs, crores, arabs, kharabs, nils, padmas, shankhs, udpadhas, and anks. Terms beyond crore are not generally used in the context of money; for example, an amount would be called ₨ 1 lakh crore (equivalent to 1 trillion) instead of ₨ 10 kharab.
The Nepalese rupee sign does not have a precomposed character. It is written using a ligature of U+0930रDEVANAGARI LETTER RA with U+0942ूDEVANAGARI VOWEL SIGN UU
Abbreviation
In Latin script, "rupee" (singular) is abbreviated as 'Re'.[citation needed] and "rupees" (plural) as '₨'. The Indonesian rupiah is abbreviated 'Rp'. In 19th century typography, abbreviations were often superscripted: or . In Brahmic scripts, rupee is often abbreviated with the grapheme for the first syllable, optionally followed by a circular abbreviation mark or a Latin abbreviation point: रु૰ (Devanagari ru.),[17][18]રૂ૰ (Gujarati ru.),[18]රු (Sinhalaru), రూ (Telugurū).
The history of the rupees can be traced back to Ancient India around the 6th century BC[citation needed]. Ancient India had some of the earliest coins in the world,[2] along with the Chinese wen and Lydian staters. The rupee coin has been used since then, even during British India, when it contained 11.66g (1tola) of 91.7% silver with an ASW of 0.3437 of a troy ounce[19] (that is, silver worth about US$10 at modern prices).[20] Valuation of the rupee based on its silver content had severe consequences in the 19th century, when the strongest economies in the world were on the gold standard. The discovery of vast quantities of silver in the United States and various European colonies resulted in a decline in the value of silver relative to gold.
At the end of the 19th century, the Indian silver rupee went onto a gold exchange standard at a fixed rate of one rupee to one shilling and fourpence in British currency, i.e. 15 rupees to 1 pound sterling.
The Indian rupee is the official currency in India. The rupee is subdivided into 100 paise. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India. The Reserve Bank manages currency in India and derives its role in currency management based on the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934.
The Pakistani rupee is the official currency in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the State Bank of Pakistan. It was officially adopted by the Government of Pakistan in 1949. Earlier the coins and notes were issued and controlled by the Reserve Bank of India until 1949, when it was handed over to the Government and State Bank of Pakistan, by the Government and Reserve Bank of India.
Paisa is a monetary unit in several countries. The word is also a generalised idiom for money and wealth. In India, Nepal, and Pakistan, the paisa currently equals 1⁄100 of a rupee. In Bangladesh, the poysha equals 1⁄100 of a Bangladeshi taka. In Oman, the baisa equals 1⁄1000 of an Omani rial.
The Mohur is a gold coin that was formerly minted by several governments, including British India and some of the princely states which existed alongside it, the Mughal Empire, Maratha Empire, Kingdom of Nepal, and Persia. It was usually equivalent in value to fifteen silver rupees. It was last minted in British India in 1918, but some princely states continued to issue the coins until their accession to India after 1947. Similar coins were also issued by the British authorities in denominations of 2⁄3 mohur, 1⁄3 mohur and the double mohur, and some of the princely states issued half-mohur coins.
The Coinage of India began anywhere between early 1st millennium BCE to the 6th century BCE, and consisted mainly of copper and silver coins in its initial stage. The coins of this period were Karshapanas or Pana. A variety of earliest Indian coins, however, unlike those circulated in West Asia, were stamped bars of metal, suggesting that the innovation of stamped currency was added to a pre-existing form of token currency which had already been present in the Janapadas and Mahajanapada kingdoms of the Early historic India. The kingdoms that minted their own coins included Gandhara, Kuntala, Kuru, Magadha, Panchala, Shakya, Surasena, Surashtra and Vidarbha etc.
Coins of the Indian rupee (₹) were first minted in 1950. New coins have been produced annually since then and they make up a valuable aspect of the Indian currency system. Today, circulating coins exist in denominations of One Rupee, Two Rupees, Five Rupees, Ten Rupees and Twenty Rupees. All of these are produced by four mints located across India, in Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Noida.
An anna was a currency unit formerly used in British India, equal to 1⁄16 of a rupee. It was subdivided into four pices or twelve pies. When the rupee was decimalised and subdivided into 100 (new) paise, one anna was therefore equivalent to 6.25 paise. The anna was demonetised as a currency unit when India decimalised its currency in 1957, followed by Pakistan in 1961. It was replaced by the 5-paise coin, which was itself discontinued in 1994 and demonetised in 2011. The term anna is frequently used to express a fraction of 1⁄16.
The history of the rupee traces back to ancient times in the Indian subcontinent. The mention of rūpya by Pāṇini is seemingly the earliest reference in a text about coins. The term in Indian subcontinent was used for referring to a coin.
The Rupie was the currency of German East Africa between 1890 and 1916, continuing to circulate in the Tanganyika Territory until 1920.
Coinage under British governance of the Indian subcontinent can be divided into two periods: East India Company (EIC) issues, pre-1835; and Imperial issues struck under direct authority of the crown. The EIC issues can be further subdivided into two subcategories: the Presidency issues, which comprise separate Madras Presidency, Bombay Presidency, and Bengal Presidency issues; and uniform coinage for all British territories from 1835 to 1858. Imperial issues bear obverse portraits of Queen Victoria, Edward VII, George V, and George VI. No British India coins were issued during the brief reign of Edward VIII.
The Indian paisa is a 1⁄100 (one-hundredth) subdivision of the Indian rupee. The paisa was first introduced on 1 April 1957 after decimalisation of the Indian rupee.
The Indian One Paisa coin is a former denomination of the Indian Rupee. The 1 coin equals 1⁄100 (one-hundredth) of the Indian Rupee. The symbol for paisa is. In 1955, India adopted metric system for coinage and amended the "Indian Coinage Act". Subsequently, one paisa coins were introduced on 1 April 1957. From 1957 to 1964, one paisa coin was called "Naya Paisa" and on 1 June 1964, the term "Naya" was dropped and the denomination was simply called "One paisa". One paisa coin has been demonetized and is no longer legal tender.
The Indian 50 paisa coin, popularly called Athanni, is a denomination of the Indian rupee, equal to half a rupee, that is very rarely found in everyday circulation. Currently it is the lowest circulating denomination of the Indian rupee. The symbol for paisa is. On 30 June 2011, when the 25 paisa and all other lower denomination coins were officially demonetised, the 50 paise coin became the lowest circulating denomination of the Indian rupee.
The taka, also known as the tanka or tangka, was one of the major historical currencies of Asia, particularly in the Indian subcontinent and Tibet. It was introduced in the 14th century and became a currency of the Silk Road. Its history is intertwined with the medieval Islamic history and culture of the Indian subcontinent.
The Indian Two paise, is a former denomination of the Indian Rupee. The 2 coin equals 1⁄50 of the Indian Rupee. The symbol for Paisa is.
The Indian Two naye paise is a unit of currency equaling 2⁄100 of the Indian rupee. The symbol for paisa is p.
The Indian Three paise, is a former denomination of the Indian Rupee. The 3 coin equals 3⁄100 of the Indian Rupee. The symbol for paisa is.
The Indian five naye paise, was a unit of currency equaling 1⁄20 of the Indian rupee. The symbol for paisa is p.
The Indian 1-rupee coin (₹1) is an Indian coin worth one Indian rupee and is made up of a hundred paisas. Currently, one rupee coin is the smallest Indian coin in circulation. Since 1992, one Indian rupee coins are minted from stainless steel. Round in shape, the one rupee coins weighs 3.76 grams, has a diameter of 21.93-millimetre (0.863 in) and thickness of 1.45-millimetre (0.057 in). In independent India, one rupee coins was first minted in 1950 and is currently in circulation.
The Indian five paise, is former denomination of the Indian Rupee. The 5 coin equals 1⁄20 of the Indian Rupee. The symbol for paisa is.
↑ Turner, Sir Ralph Lilley (1985) [London: Oxford University Press, 1962–1966.]. "A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages". Includes three supplements, published 1969–1985. Digital South Asia Library, a project of the Center for Research Libraries and the University of Chicago. Retrieved 26 August 2010. rū'pya 10805 rū'pya 'beautiful, bearing a stamp'; 'silver'
↑ Turner, Sir Ralph Lilley (1985) [London: Oxford University Press, 1962–1966.]. "A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages". Includes three supplements, published 1969–1985. Digital South Asia Library, a project of the Center for Research Libraries and the University of Chicago. Retrieved 26 August 2010. rūpa 10803 'form, beauty'
↑ Rajaram Narayan Saletore. Early Indian Economic History. N.M Tripathi. p.614.
↑ Trübner’s Oriental Series DA TANG XIYU JI Great Tang Dynasty Records of the Western World, translated by Samuel Beal TWO VOLUMES Kegan, Paul, Trench, Teubner & Co. London • 1906 [First Edition ‐ London • 1884]
↑ etymonline.com (20 September 2008). "Etymology of rupee". Retrieved 20 September 2008.
↑ "Mughal Coinage". Archived from the original on 5 October 2002. Sher Shah issued a coin of silver which was termed the Rupiya. This weighed 178 grains and was the precursor of the modern rupee. It remained largely unchanged till the early 20th Century
↑ Deka, Rabin (25 January 2010). "Additions to Deva-Nagariscript and Bengali script"(PDF). This proposal contains two attestations with a solid dot instead of a circle. Deka also points out that रु. is printed with a shorter head bar when used as the abbreviation for rupee.
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