Chapter PAPUA to PARDAO of P by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

or 300 reis, and these D’Acunha speaks of as silver coins. Nunez, as far as I can make out, does not speak of them as coins, but rather implies that in account so many tangas of silver were reckoned as a pardao. Later in the century, however, we learn from Balbi (1580), Barrett¹⁰ (1584), and Linschoten (1583–89), the principal currency of Goa consisted of a silver coin called xerafin (see XERAFINE) and pardao-xerafin, which was worth 5 tangas, each of 60 reis. (So these had been from the beginning, and so they continued, as is usual in such cases. The scale of sub-multiples remains the same, whilst the value of the divisible coin diminishes. Eventually the lower denominations become infinitesimal, like the maravedis and the reis, and either vanish from memory, or survive only as denominations of account). The data, such as they are, allow us to calculate the pardao or xerafin at this time as worth 4s. 2d. to 4s. 6d.

A century later, Fryer’s statement of equivalents (1676) enables us to use the stability of the Venetian sequin as a gauge; we then find the tanga gone down to 6d. and the pardao or xerafin to 2s. 6d. Thirty years later Lockyer (1711) tells us that one rupee was reckoned equal to 1½ perdo. Calculating the Surat Rupee, which may have been probably his standard, still by help of the Venetian (p. 262) at about 2s. 3d., the pardao would at this time be worth 1s. 6d. It must have depreciated still further by 1728, when the Goa mint began to strike rupees, with the effigy of Dom João V., and the half-rupee appropriated the denomination of pardao. And the half-rupee, till our own time, has continued to be so styled. I have found no later valuation of the Goa Rupee than that in Prinsep’s Tables (Thomas’s ed. p. 55), the indications of which, taking the Company’s Rupee at 2s., would make it 21d. The pardao therefore would represent a value of 10½d., and there we leave it.

[On this Mr. Whiteway writes: “Should it be intended to add a note to this, I would suggest that the remarks on coinage commencing at page 67 of my Rise of the Portuguese Power in India be examined, as although I have gone to Sir H. Yule for much, some papers are now accessible which he does not appear to have seen. There were two pardaos, the pardao d’ouro and the pardao de tanga, the former of 360 reals, the latter of 300. This is clear from the Foral of Goa of Dec. 18, 1758 (India Office MSS. Conselho Ultramarino), which passage is again quoted in a note to Fasc. 5 of the Archiv. Port. Orient. p. 326. Apparently patecoons were originally coined in value equal to the pardao d’ouro, though I say (p. 71) their value is not recorded. The patecoon was a silver coin, and when it was tampered with, it still remained of the nominal value of the pardao d’ouro, and this was the cause of the outcry and of the injury the people of Goa suffered. There were monies in Goa which I have not shown on p. 69. There was the tanga branca used in revenue accounts (see Nunez, p. 31), nearly but not quite double the ordinary tanga. This money of account was of 4 barganims (see BARGANY) each of 24 bazarucos (see BUDGROOK), that is rather over 111 reals. The whole question of coinage is difficult, because the coins were continually being tampered with. Every ruler, and they were numerous in those days, stamped a piece of metal at his pleasure, and the trader had to calculate its value, unless as a subject of the ruler he was under compulsion.”]

1444.—“In this country (Vijayanagar) they have three kinds of money, made of gold mixed with alloys: one called varahah weighs about one mithkal, equivalent to two dinars kopeki; the second, which is called pertab, is the half of the first; the third, called fanom, is equivalent in value to the tenth part of the last- mentioned coin. Of these different coins the fanom is the most useful. …”—Abdurrazzak, in India in the XVth Cent. p. 26.

c. 1504–5; pubd. 1510.—“I departed from the city of Dabuli aforesaid, and went to another island, which … is called Goga (Goa) and which pays annually to the King of Decan 19,000 gold ducats, called by them pardai. These pardai are smaller than the seraphim of Cairo, but thicker, and have two devils stamped on one side, and certain letters on the other.”—Varthema, pp. 115–116.

„ “… his money consists of a pardao, as I have said. He also coins a silver money called tare (see TARA), and others of gold, twenty of which go to a pardao, and are called fanom. And of these small ones of silver, there go sixteen to a fanom. …”—Ibid. p. 130.

1510.—“Meanwhile the Governor (Alboquerque) talked with certain of our people who were goldsmiths, and understood the alligation of gold and silver, and also with goldsmiths and money - changers of the country who were well acquainted with that business. There were in the country pardaos of gold, worth in gold 360 reys, and also a money of good silver which they call barganym (see BARGANY) of the value of 2 vintems, and a money of copper which they call bazaruqos (see BUDGROOK), of the value of 2 reis. Now all these the Governor sent to have weighed and assayed. And he caused to be made cruzados of their proper weight of 420 reis,