In Search of Farid’s Dam(n)...

 

“...No, I don’t give a damn! This is not a dam” fumed Farid Khan. His colleague at the university was quick to realise his mistake. The coin he presented wasn’t a dam. It closely resembled one though…
The coin that Farid was searching for was a Dam from the Mughal era. About 480 years ago, the coin was first introduced as a cheap copper subunit of the newly introduced Silver Rupaiya, by the founding emperor of the Suri Dynasty with whom he shared his name, as part of greater reforms during his reign… Reforms so fundamental that it paved the way for a period of economic prosperity that continued for centuries lasting throughout the Mughal era, the East India Company & formed the basis for the currency of the British Raj.

A Dam Paisa of Sher Shah Suri weighing over 20g, c. 1542-1543 [Credit: American Numismatic Society]

When Farid became the Emperor

Farid Khan, better known as Sher Shah Suri was the reformer.

Born in 1472 in present day Haryana, then a part of the Delhi Sultanate under the Lodi Dynasty, Farid Khan worked his way up the ladder from a sepoy (private) to being the commander of a Mughal Army. It was the then governor of Bihar, Bahar Khan Lohani, who, impressed with his courage & valour, awarded him with the title of Sher Khan- Lord of the Lions. Following the death of Bahar Khan, a power struggle ensued between him and Jalal Khan (the minor son of Bahar Khan), post which Sher Khan assumed complete control over the province of Bihar by swiftly defeating his rivals. In 1539, Sher Khan faced Humayun, the then reigning Mughal emperor, in the Battle of Chausa. An excellent military commander as he was, Sher Khan quickly defeated Humayun, who had to flee the battlefield for his life. Following his defeat of the emperor, Sher Khan assumed the title of Farīd al-Dīn Shēr Shah. The next year, in 1540, his forces met Humayun’s again- this time in Kannauj. Once again, he successfully defeated Humayun, who now had to flee India for his life. This victory marked the start of the Suri Dynasty with its capital at Sarasam, as Sher Shah had finally gained control over all of the then Mughal territory in India.

Sher Shah Suri ruled for a short period of only 5 years, ending in 1545 due to his sudden demise. However in this rather short period, he laid the foundation of a prosperous Indian empire for centuries to come, with the success of his succeeding rivals, the Mughals, being based on the continuation & improvement of his policies.

“If Sher Shah had been spared he would have established his dynasty, and the ' Great Moguls ' would not have appeared on the stage of history. His right to the throne was quite as good as that of Humayun. Both princes were merely foreign military adventurers seeking to carve out a kingdom by the sword, and Sher Shah was personally far abler than his rival [Humayun].” The Oxford History of India, 1919 pp. 329

The Suri Empire collapsed a mere decade later in 1555, as Humayun returned from his exile to conquer back his lost Indian empire, and re-established Mughal rule which continued for centuries until the advent of the British in India. With this, the Suri empire, having ruled for a measly 15 years, was permanently relegated to the lost pages of Indian history.

Tomb of Sher Shah Suri in Sarasam, present day Bihar [Credit: Bihar Tourism]

It can be safely said that the Mughals owe much of their later effective rule to their continuation & often improving upon the far sighted policies of Sher Shah. Had it not been for Sher Shah, the succeeding Mughals would have been, like the numerous others, consigned to the forgotten pages of history, as one of the many rulers of the subcontinent who failed to leave their mark on the timeline of Indian history.

Shaping the Next 500 Years in Five

The short reign of Sher Shah was characterised by a variety of reforms & policy changes, with far reaching consequences. He successfully reformed the entirety of his imperial administration- now restructured into administrative divisions of Sarkars & Parganas (later improved upon by Raja Todar Mal during the reign of Akbar), rebuilt and greatly modernised the Grand Trunk Road and other such arterial roads to facilitate trade & commerce, built Sarais (Traveller’s inns), Kos Minars (Milestone towers) & Baolis (Stepwells) along them on regular intervals & took steps to improve passenger safety, modernised the prevalent communication system & established the Horse Daak postage, with 1700 relay stations equipped with horses, among many others.

However the most significant and far reaching of his reforms were his monetary reforms.

When Sher Shah ascended to the throne, there was no fixed currency prevalent in the empire. Every piece of money that had been issued till then were accepted in the bazaars- from gold coins issued by the Guptas to billon & base metal issues of the preceding Delhi Sultanates. This lack of a standardised currency across the empire affected trade greatly. Sher Shah quickly moved to issue edicts that demonetised the issues of preceding dynasties & rulers,  thus completely removing billon & base metal coins from the market. In its place, the emperor issued and enforced new coins of his own that subscribed to strict standards of weight and fineness. These new issues- the gold Mohur, the silver Rupaya, the copper Dam, and their subunits were related to each other by means of fixed ratios, and were minted by the royal mints with their issue and circulation being controlled to maintain the fixed ratios between the trimetallic currency units. This system of trimetallic issuances & strict monetary discipline later came to characterise the coinage of the succeeding Mughals, who overthrew the Suris in 1555, but continued with these policies and greatly benefited from them. After centuries of debasement and monetary indiscipline by the Delhi Sultanates (particularly during the Tughlaq era), this reintroduction of trimetallic issues accompanied with proper monetary discipline was a step in the right direction.

The Sanskrit word “Rupaya” until then meant a piece of wrought silver and lacked a defining weight and fineness for use as a standardised currency. Sher Shah introduced “Rupaya” as a silver coin of 180 grains with 175 grains of pure silver. A “Mohur” consisted of 169 grains of gold, and was linked to the Rupaya by means of simple ratios. To facilitate wider acceptance, the coins of Sher Shah often contained his name in Nagari characters, in addition to the usual Arabic inscriptions. A “Rupaya” was divided into 64 “Dams” or copper subunits. This ratio was later changed to a “Rupaya” being worth 40 “Dams” to suit economic needs of the time. Both the Rupaya & Dams had their halves, quarters, eighths & sixteenths issued by royal mints.

A 26mm Silver Rupaya of Sher Shah Suri weighing 11.39g, c. 1542-1543 [Credit: American Numismatic Society]

 

The practice of issuing halves, quarters, eighths & such similar denominations can be seen to have continued way into the coinage of the British Raj with its issuance of the Rupee & fractional subunits, and later in the present Republican era, post independence, as reflected with the pre-decimalised rupee coinage issues of 1950-1957.

“Sher Shah, the Afghan rival of Babar’s Humayun, is entitled to the honour of establishing the reformed system of currency, which lasted throughout the Mughal period, was maintained by the East India Company down to 1835, and is the basis of the existing British currency.” Imperial Gazette of India, 1909 Vol-II [Historical] pp. 145-146

“No, I don’t give a dam(n)!”

Of all the issues introduced by the Suri Empire (& later continued by the Mughals), the most remarkable of all is that of the copper Dam, a coin of low value. Further striking is the existence of its subunits- halves, quarters, eights & sixteenths, denominations even lower in value. The existence of copper subunits denominated in such low values points us to the existence of a strong local economy during the reign of Sher Shah (& later the Mughals) and a relatively higher purchasing power of the then subjects of the empire.

A Dam Paisa of Sher Shah Suri, c. 1543-1544, Gwalior Mint [Credit: American Numismatic Society]

 

When the English first came ashore the coast of India for purposes of trade & commerce, they came to be acquainted with these copper Dams of low value. Soon the word “Dam” was adopted by the British merchants & officials stationed in India to refer to objects of low value. As time went by, this adoption of the word spread and soon a corrupted version of the word Dam, “Damn”, was incorporated into the English dictionary to describe “objects or situations with little or no value to merit any concern”. In popular culture today, the English word “Damn” is often used and is seen as a casual & inseparable part of urban English lingo. So did our Farid Khan in the introductory paragraph of the article when he expressed his unhappiness on being handed a coin he expected to be a Dam.

 

-Soubhik Chatterjee