Rewriting History

I am traveling out – thus I have no time to do blogging. Perhaps you might find my following comment on one of my own posts, in response to a reader’s comment, interesting. I have written on the subject of “Retrograde Sa” earlier – but the following will elaborate further – on aspects that was not touched upon earlier:

Maartang with a mirrored "Sa" on the Reverse

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Dear Anon,

Thank you for passing by and leaving a comment. I know that the term “Retrograde” has been employed for a long time to describe Bhutanese Maartangs with a mirrored “Sa” on the reverse of a coin. But it would not be correct to allow things to remain uncorrected – history is forever subject to rewriting when new discoveries are made.

According to the Dictionary, the term “Retrograde” is employed to describe a planetary movement in a particular direction. Thus it is my belief that a static alphabet “Sa” cannot be termed “Retrograde” since it is not in motion.

My book will carry a chapter on the subject of “Retrograde Sa”. In it I will certainly ensure that what I am now going to call “Mirrored Sa” was originally categorized as “Retrograde Sa” – to give continuity to the inference of the word among numismatic circles.

There are many other problems with the written history of Bhutanese coins. For instance, I am also not going to use the term “Deb Rupee”. Firstly, it is not correct that all the silver coins were hammered by the Debs or, as the British and foreign writers have called them, Deb Rajas. The term that was employed during those days to describe the country’s secular rulers, beginning from 1651, was: Druk Desi. The early silver coins were even more abundantly struck by the Poenlops, Dzongpoens and even perhaps by the temporal rulers – the Je Khenpos.

Secondly, “Rupee” is a monetary unit of India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, and the Seychelles – not Bhutan’s. Thus it should not be applied to describe a Bhutanese coin. In reference to Bhutanese coins, the terms employed should be Ngueltang, Maartang, Zangtang, Sertang Thala and Tikchang.

Unfortunately even the term “Ngultrum” to describe our paper currency is wrong. It actually translates to: “Silver Coin”. There is a term few know of its existence – “Shog Lor” – meaning paper money. But I am still trying to find out what Lor stands for. "Shog" is paper.