Tokens of Colonial India: 18th–19th Century Popular Currency by Roma Niyogi

Description

I. Introduction. II. 1. Date and place of origin of religious tokens. 2. Ramatankas of eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. III. 1. Primary purpose and new role of Ramatankas. 2. The East India Company and scarcity of silver. IV. 1. Indo-British tokens. 2. Indo-British coin-tokens. V. 1. Designs and legends on religious tokens. 2. Legends on Indo-British tokens. Catalogue: A. Gold Ramatankas of early types. B. Popular Ramatankas of eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: 1. Ramasabha and the Ramayana miscellaneous. 2. Other Ramatankas. 3. Other religious tokens. C. Miscellaneous modern tokens and medallions. D. Indo-British tokens. E. Miscellaneous coins and foreign tokens. Appendices: 1. Ramatankas and dates. 2. Regional and cultural association of the Ramatankas. Abbreviations. Select bibliography. Index.

“Prolific production of a class of silver and base metal religious token popularly known as Ramatankas and also of those fabricated in Indo-British coin-style is an interesting phenomenon of the eighteenth-nineteenth century India. The result of a survey of such tokens indicates that these had been occasionally forced by circumstances to play a new tole in some spheres of economic activities within the country as the money of the people. It is interesting to note that such circumstance were mostly consequences of the commercial and monetary policies of the merchant rulers who had their headquarters at the city of Calcutta which is now celebrating its tercentenary. 

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