Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Rupee
Summary
Rupee is the common name for the currencies of
India, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Seychelles, and Sri Lanka, and of former currencies of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (as the Gulf rupee), British East Africa, Burma, German East Africa (as Rupie/Rupien), and Tibet. In Indonesia and the Maldives, the unit of currency is known as rupiah and rufiyaa respectively, cognates of the word rupee.
The Indian rupees () and Pakistani rupees () are subdivided into one hundred paise (singular paisa) or pice. The Nepalese rupee (रू) subdivides into one hundred paisa (singular and plural) or four sukaas. The Mauritian, Seychellois, and Sri Lankan rupees subdivide into 100 cents.
The Hindustani word rupiyā is derived from the Sanskrit word rūpya (रूप्य), 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 (रूप) "shape, likeness, image".
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 term is from rūpya, a Sanskrit term for silver coin, from Sanskrit rūpa, beautiful form.
Arthashastra, written by Chanakya, chief adviser to the first Maurya emperor Chandragupta Maurya (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 1538/1540 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 grains, which was also termed the Rupiya.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.