
Rupee is the common name for the
currencies of
India,
Mauritius,
Nepal,
Pakistan,
Seychelles, and
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
, and of former currencies of
Afghanistan,
Bahrain,
Kuwait,
Oman, the
United Arab Emirates (as the
Gulf rupee),
British East Africa,
Burma,
German East Africa
German East Africa (GEA; german: Deutsch-Ostafrika) was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Mozam ...
(as
Rupie/Rupien), and
Tibet. In
Indonesia and the
Maldives, the unit of currency is known as ''
rupiah'' and ''
rufiyaa'' respectively,
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
s of the word rupee.
The
Indian rupees () and
Pakistani rupee
The Pakistani rupee ( ur, / ALA-LC: ; sign: Re (singular) and Rs (plural); ISO code: PKR) is the official currency of Pakistan since 1948. The coins and notes are issued and controlled by the central bank, namely State Bank of Pakistan.
In ...
s () are subdivided into one hundred
paise (singular ''paisa'') or pice. The
Nepalese rupee (रू) subdivides into one hundred
paisa
Paisa (also transliterated as ''pice'', ''pesa'', ''poysha'', ''poisha'' and ''baisa'') 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 equa ...
(singular and plural) or four
sukaas. The
Mauritian,
Seychellois, and
Sri Lankan rupee
The Sri Lankan Rupee ( si, රුපියල්, ta, ரூபாய்; Currency symbol, symbol: Re and Rs (plural) in English, රු in Sinhala, ௹ in Tamil; ISO 4217, ISO code: LKR) is the currency of Sri Lanka. It is subdivided into 100 ...
s subdivide into 100 cents.
Etymology
The
Hindustani
Hindustani may refer to:
* something of, from, or related to Hindustan (another name of India)
* Hindustani language, an Indo-Aryan language, whose two official norms are Hindi and Urdu
* Fiji Hindi, a variety of Eastern Hindi spoken in Fiji, and ...
word ''rupyā'' is derived from the
Sanskrit word ''rūpya'' (), which means "wrought silver, a coin of silver", in origin an adjective meaning "shapely", with a more specific meaning of "stamped, impressed", whence "coin". It is derived from the noun ''
rūpa'' () "shape, likeness, image".
History

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,
along with the Lydian
staters, several other Middle Eastern coinages and the
Chinese wen
The cash () was a currency denomination used in China in imperial times. It was the chief denomination until the introduction of the yuan in the late 19th century.
Etymology
The English word "cash", meaning "tangible currency", is an older wo ...
.
The term is from ''rūpya'', a Sanskrit term for
silver coin, from Sanskrit ''rūpa'', beautiful form.
''
Arthashastra
The ''Arthashastra'' ( sa, अर्थशास्त्रम्, ) is an Ancient Indian Sanskrit treatise on statecraft, political science, economic policy and military strategy. Kautilya, also identified as Vishnugupta and Chanakya, is ...
'', written by
Chanakya, chief adviser to the first
Maurya emperor Chandragupta Maurya
Chandragupta Maurya (350-295 BCE) was a ruler in Ancient India who expanded a geographically-extensive kingdom based in Magadha and founded the Maurya dynasty. He reigned from 320 BCE to 298 BCE. The Maurya kingdom expanded to become an empi ...
(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.
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''.
During his reign from 1537 to 1545, Afghan ruler
Sher Shah Suri of the
Sur Empire set up a new civic and military administration and issued a coin of silver, weighing 178
grain
A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legum ...
s, which was also termed the ''Rupiya''. Suri also introduced copper coins called ''
dam'' and
gold coins called ''
mohur'' that weighed 169 grains (10.95 g). 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.
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
Mughal or Moghul may refer to:
Related to the Mughal Empire
* Mughal Empire of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries
* Mughal dynasty
* Mughal emperors
* Mughal people, a social group of Central and South Asia
* Mughal architecture
* Mug ...
style and those of
Madras
Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
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
Farrukhsiyar or Farrukh Siyar () (20 August 16839 April 1719) was the tenth emperor of the Mughal Empire from 1713 to 1719. He rose to the throne after assassinating his uncle, Emperor Jahandar Shah. Reportedly a handsome man who was easily sw ...
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
Coinage may refer to:
* Coins, standardized as currency
* Neologism, coinage of a new word
* ''COINage'', numismatics magazine
* Tin coinage, a tax on refined tin
* Protologism, coinage of a seldom used new term
See also
* Coining (disambiguatio ...
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
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...
expanded during 1870–1910. Unlike India, her colonial master 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 the chain of the Order of the Indian Elephant. Through poor engraving, the elephant looked very much like a pig. The
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
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. Even after independence, the British coinage was continued in India. 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
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. 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
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...
were gradually minted in Aluminium. 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
Somaliland,; ar, صوماليلاند ', ' officially the Republic of Somaliland,, ar, جمهورية صوماليلاند, link=no ''Jumhūrīyat Ṣūmālīlānd'' is a ''de facto'' sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, still conside ...
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
The Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) was a commercial association founded to develop African trade in the areas controlled by the British Empire. The company was incorporated in London on 18 April 1888 and granted a royal charter by Q ...
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
Sterling may refer to:
Common meanings
* Sterling silver, a grade of silver
* Sterling (currency), the currency of the United Kingdom
** Pound sterling, the primary unit of that currency
Places United Kingdom
* Stirling, a Scottish city w ...
. In 1920 in
British East Africa, the opportunity was then taken to introduce a new
florin
The Florentine florin was a gold coin struck from 1252 to 1533 with no significant change in its design or metal content standard during that time. It had 54 grains (3.499 grams, 0.113 troy ounce) of nominally pure or 'fine' gold with a purcha ...
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
Sterling may refer to:
Common meanings
* Sterling silver, a grade of silver
* Sterling (currency), the currency of the United Kingdom
** Pound sterling, the primary unit of that currency
Places United Kingdom
* Stirling, a Scottish city w ...
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.
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.
Straits Settlements
The
Straits Settlements
The Straits Settlements were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia. Headquartered in Singapore for more than a century, it was originally established in 1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Comp ...
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.
Denominations
The original silver rupee,
.917 fine silver, , 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
Paisa (also transliterated as ''pice'', ''pesa'', ''poysha'', ''poisha'' and ''baisa'') 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 equa ...
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
numbers ''adha'', ''do'', ''chār'', ''ātha'' mean respectively half, two, four, eight in Hindi and Urdu.) Two ''paisa'' was also called a ''taka'', see below.
Decimalisation
Decimalisation or decimalization (see spelling differences) is the conversion of a system of currency or of weights and measures to units related by powers of 10.
Most countries have decimalised their currencies, converting them from non-decimal ...
occurred in India in 1957, in Pakistan in 1961, and in Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) in 1969. Since 1957 an Indian rupee is divided into 100 paise. 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 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.
The issuance of the Indian currency is controlled by the
Reserve Bank of India, and issuance of Pakistani currency is controlled by
State Bank of Pakistan.
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
lakh
A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2,2,3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. For ex ...
s,
crore
A crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes ten million (10,000,000 or 107 in scientific notation) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. It is written as 1,00,00,000 with the local 2,2,3 style of digit group separators (one lakh is e ...
s,
arabs,
kharabs,
nils,
padmas,
shankh
A Shankha (conch shell) has religious ritual importance in Hinduism. It is the shell of any suitable sea snail which had a hole made for the performer's embouchure.
In Hindu history, the shankha is a sacred emblem of The Hindu preserver god Vi ...
s, 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.
Symbol
The rupee sign ₨ is a
currency sign
A currency symbol or currency sign is a graphic symbol used to denote a currency unit. Usually it is defined by the monetary authority, like the national central bank for the currency concerned.
In formatting, the symbol can use various format ...
used to represent the
monetary unit of account in
Pakistan,
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
,
Nepal,
Mauritius,
Seychelles, and formerly in
India. It resembles, and is often written as, the
Latin character sequence "Rs" or "Rs.".
Currency sign
A currency symbol or currency sign is a graphic symbol used to denote a currency unit. Usually it is defined by the monetary authority, like the national central bank for the currency concerned.
In formatting, the symbol can use various format ...
s exist for other countries that use the rupee but not this sign: their usage is also described at the main article.
Abbreviation
In
Latin script, "rupee" (singular) is abbreviated as Re. 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.''),
[ 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.] રૂ૰ (Gujarati ''ru.''),
රු (
Sinhala ''ru''), రూ (
Telugu
Telugu may refer to:
* Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India
*Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India
* Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language
** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode
S ...
''rū'').
Value
The history of the rupees can be traced back to
Ancient India around the 6th century BC. Ancient India had some of the earliest coins in the world,
along with the
Chinese wen
The cash () was a currency denomination used in China in imperial times. It was the chief denomination until the introduction of the yuan in the late 19th century.
Etymology
The English word "cash", meaning "tangible currency", is an older wo ...
and Lydian
staters.
The rupee coin has been used since then, even during
British India, when it contained 11.66 g (1
tola) of 91.7% silver with an ASW of 0.3437 of a
troy ounce (that is, silver worth about US$10 at modern prices).
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
A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the la ...
at a fixed rate of one rupee to one shilling and fourpence in British currency, i.e. 15 rupees to 1
pound sterling
Sterling (abbreviation: stg; Other spelling styles, such as STG and Stg, are also seen. ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound ( sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, and t ...
.
See also
*
Rupee (''The Legend of Zelda''), a fictional currency
*
The Revised Standard Reference Guide to Indian Paper Money
''The Revised Standard Reference Guide to Indian Paper Money'' is a 2012 book by Rezwan Razack and Kishore Jhunjhunwalla. The book is a comprehensive compilation of facts, milestones, and other details regarding paper money in India. It was pu ...
References
Sources and external links
*
{{Authority control
Coins of India
Coins of the Maldives
Currency symbols
Denominations (currency)