Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / Aurangzeb's Deccan Currency: The Copper Coins That Bankrupted an Empire
Transcript
- Lucas: If you've been following these conversations about Aurangzeb's world — the wars, the taxes, the court intrigue — you've probably noticed a theme: everything cost a fortune. The Deccan campaigns alone ate up something like half the empire's annual revenue year after year. But where did all that money actually go? And more importantly, what happened to the rupees in ordinary people's pockets? Luna: I've never really thought about Mughal currency before. Weren't coins just coins? Lucas: They were, until they weren't. Under Aurangzeb, the Mughal mint system — one of the most sophisticated in the early modern world — started working against itself. And it's a story that doesn't get nearly enough attention, but it helps explain why the empire collapsed so quickly after his death. Quick honest thing: a small number of listeners chip in monthly at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what funds episodes like this. So if you find this deep dive useful, it matters. Luna: I think that's part of why the show feels so different — no ads, just the research. Lucas: Exactly. So — let's get into the coins. The Mughals had a tri-metallic system: gold mohurs for big transactions, silver rupees for everyday trade, and copper dams — kind of like pennies — for small purchases. And for most of the 17th century, it worked beautifully. The rupee was a trusted currency from Bengal to Kabul. Luna: So what changed under Aurangzeb? Lucas: The war machine. From 1682 onward, Aurangzeb was camped in the Deccan, fighting Maratha guerrilla forces, besieging forts like Jinji and Raigad, paying hundreds of thousands of soldiers and their horses. The treasury bled silver. And when the silver ran low, the emperor did what many rulers did in a pinch — he minted more coins. But he didn't just mint more rupees. He minted massive quantities of copper dams, which were worth only a fraction of a silver rupee. Luna: So he was basically printing small change to pay for a war? Lucas: Exactly. And the scale is staggering. In the 1640s, the imperial mints struck maybe 10 million dams a year. By the 1690s, that number had jumped to over 70 million. That's seven times the copper coins flooding the market. Meanwhile, silver rupees became scarce because they were hoarded — by the Marathas, by zamindars, by merchants who knew copper was losing value. Lucas: The maasir i alamgiri, Aurangzeb's official court history, records that the emperor himself took an interest in minting. He issued orders that all coins — gold, silver, and copper — must bear his name and the Hijri year. But the chroniclers also note a worrying trend: the copper dams began to be debased. Some mints, especially in the Deccan, mixed in cheaper metals. The purchasing power of a dam dropped. Luna: Did people still accept them? Lucas: Not willingly. Niccolao Manucci, the Venetian gunsmith who lived in Mughal India for decades, wrote about how shopkeepers in the Deccan would refuse copper coins or demand a premium to accept them. He tells a story about a soldier who tried to buy bread with fifty dams — enough for a week's provisions a decade earlier — and the baker laughed at him. The soldier had to add a cloth from his own turban to make up the difference. Luna: That's incredible. So the currency itself became a kind of tax on the poor? Lucas: Exactly. The jizya tax on non-Muslims, which Aurangzeb reimposed in 1679, was collected in silver. But ordinary farmers and artisans earned their income in copper dams. So they had to exchange their copper for silver at a loss to pay the tax — a double squeeze. And the imperial treasury, when it collected taxes, insisted on silver or gold. So the government was effectively siphoning value from the copper economy. Lucas: There's a fascinating document from around 1700 — a petition from a village near Delhi — that complains about the quality of the copper coins. The villagers say the mints are turning out coins so thin you can bend them with your fingers. They asked for permission to use old, heavier coins instead. The petition was denied. Luna: So Aurangzeb knew this was happening and didn't fix it? Lucas: He did try to issue reforms — in 1697, he ordered the mints to produce a new, heavier dam. But by then the damage was done. The Marathas had started minting their own coins in the territories they controlled — silver rupees imitating Mughal designs but with Maratha symbols — and those were actually trusted more. People voted with their pockets. Lucas: And here's the irony: Aurangzeb's own historians, writing after his death, acknowledged the problem. The author of the maasir i alamgiri notes that when the emperor died in 1707, the treasury was nearly empty. The war had consumed everything. And the currency system, once the pride of the empire, was in ruins. Within a generation, regional powers like the Nawabs of Bengal and the Nizams of Hyderabad were minting their own coins, effectively breaking the Mughal monetary monopoly. Luna: So the copper coin revolution didn't just fail — it helped fragment the empire. Lucas: Precisely. Currency is one of those invisible forces in history — it's easy to ignore because it's just money. But when the money stops working, people notice. The Mughal empire didn't fall because of bad coins alone, but the copper dam crisis reminds us that even the mightiest war machine runs on cash. And when the cash is worthless, the machine grinds to a halt.