The taka, also known as the tanka or tangka, was one of the major historical currencies of

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

, particularly in the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...

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. In modern times, the Bangladeshi taka is considered a legacy of the historical taka because

Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...

was the stronghold of the currency. It was inscribed in numerous languages across different regions, including in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Hindustani, Bengali, Nepali, Tibetan and Mandarin.

Etymology

According to '' The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'' and '' Banglapedia'', the word ''taka'' came from the

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

word ''tankah''. The Russian word '' denga'' is borrowed from Tatar (cf. Chagatay: ''täŋkä''; ; ; ). Other proposals made are: Middle Persian: ''dāng'', New Persian: ''dānag'' ('coin'), whereas other authors saw the word close to the Turkic word '' tamga'' ('mark, stamp').

Introduction in North India

Sultan Shams al-Din Iltutmish (1210-1235 CE) established the currency of the

Delhi Sultanate The Delhi Sultanate or the Sultanate of Delhi was a Medieval India, late medieval empire primarily based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for more than three centuries.

drawing on Muslim settler and native Indian elements. The basic units were the silver tanka having the weight of one tola of 96 rattis (11.2 grams). The tanka was made up of 48 billon '' jitals'' containing 2 rattis of silver, mixed with copper, weighing about 3.5 grams in total. The silver tankas minted in Delhi bear the name of Caliph al-Muntasir and the titles of Iltutmish, typically ''al-sultān al-a'zam'' (the very mighty sultan), while the reverse either the shahada, ''lā ʾilāha ʾillā -llāh' muḥammadun rasūlu llāh'' ("There is no god but God. Muhammad is the Messenger of God") or the legend ''fī 'ahd al-imām'' (in the time of the Imam). Under the monetary reforms of Shah Muhammad bin Tughluq, the tanka was modeled as representative money, a concept pioneered as paper money by the

Mongols Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China ( Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family o ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

and Persia. Tughluq's tanka was minted in copper and brass. Its value was exchanged with gold and silver reserves in the imperial treasury. The currency was introduced due to the shortage of metals. Over time, the tanka was minted in silver. However, chaos followed its launch in the 14th century, leading to the collapse of the Tughluq dynasty. The Tughluqs were succeeded by numerous regional states, notably the Bengal Sultanate, the Bahmani Sultanate and the Gujarat Sultanate. These kingdoms continued to mint the new currency in the name of their own rulers. Even much later under the early modern

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an Early modern period, early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to ...

, regional currencies were still referred to as tanka/tangka/taka.

Arakan

The Bengal tanka was widely circulated in the Kingdom of Mrauk U (now in

Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...

) in the 16th and 17th centuries, when it was a vassal state of the Bengal Sultanate. File:Muhghazi.jpg, Silver tanka from Arakan with Perso-Arabic script

Bangladesh

The Bangladeshi taka is the currency of modern

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

. It was officially introduced in 1972 by the Bangladesh Bank to replace the Pakistani rupee at par following the end of the

Bangladesh Liberation War The Bangladesh Liberation War (, ), also known as the Bangladesh War of Independence, was an War, armed conflict sparked by the rise of the Bengali nationalism, Bengali nationalist and self-determination movement in East Pakistan, which res ...

and is produced by Bangladesh's Security Printing Corporation. The Bangladeshi taka carries the symbols ৳ and Tk.

Bengal

The taka was traditionally equal to one silver rupee in Islamic Bengal. In 1338, Ibn Battuta noticed that the silver taka was the most popular currency in the region instead of the Islamic dinar. In 1415, members of Admiral Zheng He's entourage also noticed the dominance of the taka. The currency was the most important symbol of sovereignty for the Sultan of Bengal. The Sultanate of Bengal established at least 27 mints in provincial capitals across the kingdom. The taka continued to be issued in Mughal Bengal, which inherited the sultanate's legacy. As Bengal became more prosperous and integrated into the

world economy The world economy or global economy is the economy of all humans in the world, referring to the global economic system, which includes all economic activities conducted both within and between nations, including production (economics), producti ...

under Mughal rule, the taka replaced shell currency in rural areas and became the standardized legal tender. It was also used in commerce with the Dutch East India Company, the French East India Company, the Danish East India Company and the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

. File:Silver coin of Danujamarddana.jpg, Silver taka of Raja Ganesha with Bengali script File:Silver Coin of Jalaluddin.jpg, Silver taka of Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah with

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

script and a lion symbol

East India

In 14th-century Odisha, epigraphic records use terms such as ''vendi-tanka'' (alloyed silver) and ''sasukani-tanka'' (bullion). The tanka spread to the region from the

during the first half of 13th century. It remained in current use for a long time as is revealed by the epigraphs of Gangas and Survamshis.

Nepal

The tanka standard was introduced in the prosperous Himalayan Kathmandu Valley (Nepal proper) in the 16th century. It was modeled on the currency of Delhi, Bengal and the Mughal Empire. The Nepalese tanka was a debased silver coin struck in 10 g. weight with minor denominations of 1⁄4, 1⁄32, 1⁄123, 1⁄512. It was introduced by King Indra Simha.

Pakistan

Until 1971, the present-day Pakistani rupee had bilingual inscriptions in Urdu and Bengali, and was called both the rupee and taka. The Bengali Language Movement played a decisive role in ensuring the recognition of the taka in East Pakistan. File:Pakistani rupee pre-1971.jpg, A Pakistani banknote with Bengali script denoting 10 taka

South India

The tanka was widely minted in the Deccan, including the Deccan sultanates and Mughal provinces. In the Berar Sultanate and Berar Subah, one Tanka-i-Barari was equal to eight Delhi tankas.

Tibet

The Tibetan tangka was an official currency of Tibet for three centuries. It was introduced by Lhasa Newar merchants from Nepal in the 16th century. The merchants used Nepalese tanka on the Silk Road. The Tibetan government began to mint the tangka in the 18th century. The first Tibetan tangka was minted in 1763/64. China's

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

, Tibet's suzerain, established mints in the region in 1792. The Sino-Tibetan tangka carried

Chinese language Chinese ( or ) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and List of ethnic groups in China, many minority ethnic groups in China, as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora. Approximately 1.39& ...

inscriptions.Bertsch, Wolfgang: The Currency of Tibet. A Sourcebook for the Study of Tibetan Coins, Paper Money and other forms of Currency. Tibetan Works and Archives, Dharamsala, 2002. Banknotes were issued between 1912 and 1941 in denominations of 5, 10, 15, 25 and 50 tangka. File:Tibetan Tangka 58.jpg, Tibetan tangka minted by the

File:Tibetan Tangka with Ranjana Script, reverse.jpg, Tibetan tangka in Ranjana script File:Tibetan Gaden Tangka, reverse.jpg, The Gaden tangka, which was used until 1948

West India

In the 15th century, the Gujarat Sultanate, on the west coast of the Indian subcontinent, began to mint silver tanka. It was a symbol of sovereignty for the Muzaffarid dynasty of Gujarat. File:Silver coin of Mahmud Shah of Gujarat.jpg, Silver tanka in Perso-Arabic script (Nasiruddin Mahmud Shah I reign) File:Silver coin of Ahmad Shah of Gujarat.jpg, Silver tanka in Perso-Arabic script (Ahmad Shah reign) File:045 mahmud 1-13.JPG, Early copper tanka

References

{{Economy of Bangladesh Taka Medieval currencies Silk Road numismatics