The word masa in Singhalese means “pulse,” or any description of “beans;” and it seems not improbable that the origin of the term as applied to money may be traced to the practice in the early Indian coinage of stamping small lumps of metal to give them authentic currency.  It can only be a coincidence that the Roman term for an ingot of gold was “massa” (Pliny, L. xxxiii. c. 19).  These Singhalese massa were probably similar to the “punched coins,” having rude stamps without effigies, and rarely even with letters, which have been turned up at Kanooj, Oujein, and other places in Western India.  A copper coin is likewise mentioned in the fourteenth century, in the Rajavali, where it is termed carooshawpa; the value of which UPHAM, without naming his authority, says was “about a pice and a half.”—­p. 136.]

[Footnote 3:  Woo heoe peen “Records of the Ming Dynasty,” A.D. 1522, B. lxviii. p. 5. Suh Wan heen tung kaou, “Antiquarian Researches,” B. ccxxxvi. p. 11.]

[Footnote 4:  Two gold coins of Lokaiswaira are in the collection of the British Museum, and will be found described by Mr. VAUX in the 16th vol. of the Numismatic Chronicle, p. 121.]

[Footnote 5:  There is a Singhalese coin figured in DAVY’S Ceylon, p. 245, the legend on which is turned upside down, but when reversed it reads “Sri Pa-re-kra-ma Bahu.”]

[Footnote 6:  Numismatic Chronicle, vol. xvi. p. 124]

[Illustration]

The Kandyans, by whom these coins are frequently found, give the copper pieces the name of Dambedenia challies, and tradition, with perfect correctness, assigns them to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the kings of that period are believed to have had a mint at Dambedenia.

A quantity of coins similar in every respect to those dug up in Ceylon have been found at Dipaldinia or Amarawati, on the continent of India, near the mouth of the Kistna; a circumstance which might be accounted for by the frequent intercourse between Ceylon and the coast, but which is possibly referable to the fact recorded in the Mahawanso that Prakrama I., after his successful expedition against the King of Pandya, caused money to be coined in his own name before retiring to Ceylon.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Mahawanso, ch. lxxvi. pp. 298, 299, UPHAM’s Trans.  The circumstance is exceedingly curious of coins of Prakrama, “identical” with those found at Dambedenia, in Ceylon, having also been discovered at Dipaldinia, on the opposite continent; and it goes far to confirm the accuracy of the Mahawanso as to the same king having coined money in both places.  Those found in the latter locality form part of the Mackenzie Collection, and have been figured in the Asiat.  Researches, xvii. 597, and afterwards by Mr. PRINSEP in the Journ. of the Asiat.  Soc. of Bengal, vi. 301.  See also a notice