Badam Publique Deposited
The name given to the almond of Persia which was used as money in some parts of India and on the Malabar Coast. Stavorninus, in his Voy- ages to the East Indies , 1798 (iii. 8), in writing of the coinage current at Surat, says : " In the same way as cowries are made use of in Bengal, as the lowest me- dium of exchange, almonds, which are called badams, are employed for that pur- pose here; the comparative value whereof is, as may easily be conceived, more liable to variation than any other respective me- dium. "
J. A. de Mandelslo, who was in Gujarat about 1638, published an account of his voyages in 1669, and says of the natives that " they also make use of almonds where- of thirty-six make a Peyse " (?Paisa).
- Frey's Dictionary (American Journal of Numismatics, Vol. 50, 1916)