An Interesting Page Out Of Our History

Early this morning (7:12AM) historian Tshering Tashi forwarded to me a copy of a page from a book by Dasho Karma Ura titled “The Hero with a Thousand Eyes”. It is an interesting account of, I believe, lives and times during His Majesty the 2nd and 3rd Kings.

Tshering Tashi obviously forwarded me the page because of my ongoing deep delve into the coining journey of Bhutan. Indeed it was interesting - the mention of the terms "betam" and "zangtam".

I offered the view that the term “betam” may well be either “Boetang” – silver coin of Tibet, or “Baltang” – silver coin from one of the independent states of the Paharis, or “Balyuel”, the collective term employed to identify present day unified Nepal. Both the coins were current in Bhutan since the early 1700s.

For a moment I wondered if the terms “betam” and “zangtam” were employed erroneously. The reason for my doubt was because the “Zangtang” was issued in 1931. That year, His Majesty the 3rd King would be only 3 years old - thus too young to serve as a Changgap in the court of his father.

Zangtang of 1931 - only 10,000 copies were milled in the Government of India Mint in Calcutta

The other reason is that only 10,000 Zantangs were supposedly milled - meaning that the coins would be extremely difficult to come by. So I reasoned that the “zangtam” may well have been the “Sa” Maartang.

"Sa" Maartang of 1950 - a total of 260,000 of these coins were struck

But then I realized that first of the two “Sa” Maartangs were issued in 1950. By 1950, His Majesty the 3rd King would be 22 years old - meaning that he would have been graduated to higher responsibilities of the state, and not be confined to being a Changgap. In fact he served as XXVth Paro Poenlop (1949 - 1952), after serving as the Trongsa Droegner as of 1943.

Thus the “zangtam” coin mentioned in the book has to be the “Zangtang” of 1931.

A page out of our history