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 Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

. It was introduced in the 14th century and became a currency of the

Silk Road The Silk Road was a network of Asian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over , it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the ...

. Its history is intertwined with the medieval Islamic history and culture of the Indian subcontinent. In modern times, the

Bangladeshi taka The taka (, , currency sign, sign: , ISO 4217, code: BDT, Short form (linguistics), short form: Tk) is the currency of Bangladesh. In Unicode, it is encoded at . Issuance of banknotes 10 and larger is controlled by Bangladesh Bank, while the ...

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 ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'' (''AHD'') is a dictionary of American English published by HarperCollins. It is currently in its fifth edition (since 2011). Before HarperCollins acquired certain business lines from H ...

'' and ''

Banglapedia ''Banglapedia:'' ''the'' ''National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh'' is the first Bangladeshi encyclopedia. It is available in print, CD-ROM format and online, in both Bengali and English. The print version comprises fourteen 500-page volumes. The ...

'', 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 Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

word ''

denga A denga (, ) was a Russian monetary unit with a value latterly equal to kopeck (100 kopecks = 1 Russian ruble). The denga was introduced in the second half of the 14th century during the reign of Dmitry Donskoy. Etymology The Russian word ' ...

'' is borrowed from Tatar (cf. Chagatay: ''täŋkä''; ; ; ). Other proposals made are:

Middle Persian Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasania ...

: ''dāng'',

New Persian New Persian (), also known as Modern Persian () is the current stage of the Persian language spoken since the 8th to 9th centuries until now in Greater Iran and surroundings. It is conventionally divided into three stages: Early New Persian (8th ...

: ''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 Shams ud-Din Iltutmish (1192 – 30 April 1236) was the third of the Mamluk kings who ruled the former Ghurid territories in northern India. He was the first Muslim sovereign to rule from Delhi, and is thus considered the effective founder of ...

(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 Abu Ja'far Muḥammad ibn Ja'far ibn Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Muntasir biʾLlāh (; November 837 – 7 June 862), better known by his regnal title al-Muntasir biʾLlāh (, "He who triumphs in God") was the caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate from ...

and the titles of Iltutmish, typically ''al-sultān al-a'zam'' (the very mighty sultan), while the reverse either the

shahada The ''Shahada'' ( ; , 'the testimony'), also transliterated as ''Shahadah'', is an Islamic oath and creed, and one of the Five Pillars of Islam and part of the Adhan. It reads: "I bear witness that there is no Ilah, god but God in Islam, God ...

, ''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 Muhammad bin Tughluq (; ; 1290 – 20 March 1351), or Muhammad II, also named Jauna Khan as Crown Prince, further known by his epithets, The Eccentric Prince, or The Mad Sultan, was the eighteenth Sultan of Delhi. He reigned from 4 February 1 ...

, the tanka was modeled as

representative money Representative money or receipt money is any medium of exchange, physical or digital, that represents something of Value (economics), value, but has little or no value of its own (intrinsic value (finance), intrinsic value). Unlike some forms of ...

, 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 Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

. 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 Bengal Sultanate (Middle Bengali: , Classical Persian: ) was a Post-classical history, late medieval sultanate based in the Bengal region in the eastern South Asia between the 14th and 16th century. It was the dominant power of the Ganges- ...

, the

Bahmani Sultanate The Bahmani Kingdom or the Bahmani Sultanate was a late medieval Persianate kingdom that ruled the Deccan plateau in India. The first independent Muslim sultanate of the Deccan, the Bahmani Kingdom came to power in 1347 during the rebellio ...

and the

Gujarat Sultanate The Gujarat Sultanate or Sultanate of Gujarat was a late medieval Islamic Indian kingdom in Western India, primarily in the present-day state of Gujarat. The kingdom was established in 1394 when Muzaffar Shah I, the Governor of Gujarat, decla ...

. 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 The Kingdom of Mrauk-U (Arakanese language, Arakanese: မြောက်ဦး ဘုရင့်နိုင်ငံတော်) was a kingdom that existed on the Arakan coastal plain from 1429 to 1785. Based in the capital Mrauk-U, near t ...

(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 A vassal state is any state that has a mutual obligation to a superior state or empire, in a status similar to that of a vassal in the feudal system in medieval Europe. Vassal states were common among the empires of the Near East, dating back to ...

of the Bengal Sultanate. File:Muhghazi.jpg, Silver tanka from Arakan with Perso-Arabic script

Bangladesh

The

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 Bangladesh Bank (BB; ) is the central bank of Bangladesh and is a member of the Asian Clearing Union. It is fully owned by the Bangladesh, Government of Bangladesh. The bank is active in developing green banking. and financial inclusion poli ...

to replace the

Pakistani rupee The Pakistani rupee (; ISO code: PKR; symbol: ; abbreviation: Re (singular) and Rs (plural)) 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 officia ...

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 Ibn Battuta (; 24 February 13041368/1369), was a Maghrebi traveller, explorer and scholar. Over a period of 30 years from 1325 to 1354, he visited much of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Iberian Peninsula. Near the end of his life, Ibn ...

noticed that the silver taka was the most popular currency in the region instead of the Islamic

dinar The dinar () is the name of the principal currency unit in several countries near the Mediterranean Sea, with a more widespread historical use. The English word "dinar" is the transliteration of the Arabic دينار (''dīnār''), which was bor ...

. 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 Bengal Sultanate (Middle Bengali: , Classical Persian: ) was a Post-classical history, late medieval sultanate based in the Bengal region in the eastern South Asia between the 14th and 16th century. It was the dominant power of the Ganges- ...

. The Sultanate of Bengal established at least 27

mints A mint or breath mint is a food item often consumed as an after-meal refreshment or before business and social engagements to improve breath odor. Mints are commonly believed to soothe the stomach, given their association with natural byproducts ...

in provincial capitals across the kingdom. The taka continued to be issued in

Mughal Bengal The Bengal Subah ( Bengali: সুবাহ বাংলা, ), also referred to as Mughal Bengal and Bengal State (after 1717), was one of the puppet states and the largest subdivision of The Mughal Empire encompassing much of the 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 Legal tender is a form of money that Standard of deferred payment, courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment in court for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything ...

. It was also used in commerce with the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

, the French East India Company, the

Danish East India Company The Danish East India Company () refers to two separate Danish-Norwegian chartered company, chartered companies. The first company operated between 1616 and 1650. The second company existed between 1670 and 1729, however, in 1730 it was re-founde ...

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 Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah (; born as Jadu/যদু) was a 15th-century Sultan of Bengal and an important figure in medieval Bengali history. Born a Hindu to his aristocratic father Raja Ganesha, the patriarch of the Ganesha dynasty, he assumed t ...

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 Odisha (), formerly Orissa (List of renamed places in India, the official name until 2011), is a States and union territories of India, state located in East India, Eastern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by ar ...

, 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 The Kathmandu Valley (), also known as the Nepal Valley or Nepa Valley (, Newar language, Nepal Bhasa: 𑐣𑐾𑐥𑐵𑑅 𑐐𑐵𑑅, नेपाः गाः), National Capital Area, is a bowl-shaped valley located in the Himalayas, Hima ...

(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

had bilingual inscriptions in Urdu and Bengali, and was called both the rupee and taka. The

Bengali Language Movement The Bengali language movement was a political movement in East Bengal (modern-day Bangladesh) in 1952, advocating the recognition of the Bengali language as a co-lingua franca of the then-Dominion of Pakistan to allow its use in government ...

played a decisive role in ensuring the recognition of the taka in

East Pakistan East Pakistan was the eastern province of Pakistan between 1955 and 1971, restructured and renamed from the province of East Bengal and covering the territory of the modern country of Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Burma, wit ...

. 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 The Deccan is a plateau extending over an area of and occupies the majority of the Indian peninsula. It stretches from the Satpura and Vindhya Ranges in the north to the northern fringes of Tamil Nadu in the south. It is bound by the mount ...

, including the

Deccan sultanates The Deccan sultanates is a historiographical term referring to five late medieval to early modern Persianate Indian Muslim kingdoms on the Deccan Plateau between the Krishna River and the Vindhya Range. They were created from the disintegrati ...

and Mughal provinces. In the Berar Sultanate and

Berar Subah The Berar Subah () was one of the Subahs (provinces) of the Mughal Empire, in Central India from 1596 to 1724. It bordered Golconda, Ahmandagar (both conquered in 1601), Kandesh and Malwa provinces as well as the independent and tributary kin ...

, 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 Lhasa Newar (alternate name: Lhasa Newah) () refers to the expatriate Newar traders and artisans who traveled between the Kathmandu Valley and Tibet from centuries ago. These Nepalis, Nepalese merchants conducted trade between Nepal, Tibet and Ben ...

merchants from Nepal in the 16th century. The merchants used Nepalese tanka on the

. 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

, 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 The taka (, , sign: , code: BDT, short form: Tk) is the currency of Bangladesh. In Unicode, it is encoded at . Issuance of banknotes 10 and larger is controlled by Bangladesh Bank, while the 2 and 5 govt. notes are the responsibility of the ...

Medieval currencies Silk Road numismatics