Rupee
Encyclopedia
The rupee is the common name for the monetary unit of account in India
Indian rupee
The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....
, Sri Lanka
Sri Lankan rupee
The rupee is the currency of Sri Lanka, divided into 100 cents. It is issued by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and is generally written Rs. The rupee (Sinhala: රුපියල , Tamil: ரூபாய்) (sign: ₨; code: LKR) is the currency of Sri Lanka, divided into 100 cents. It is issued by the Central Bank of Sri...
, Nepal
Nepalese rupee
The rupee is the official currency of Nepal. The present rupee has the ISO 4217 code NPR and is normally abbreviated with the sign ₨. It is subdivided into 100 paisa. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Nepal Rastra Bank...
, Pakistan
Pakistani rupee
The rupee is the currency of Pakistan. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the State Bank of Pakistan, the central bank of the country. The most commonly used symbol for the rupee is Rs, used on receipts when purchasing goods and services. In Pakistan, the rupee is referred to as the...
, Mauritius
Mauritian rupee
The rupee is the currency of Mauritius.It is theoretically divided into 100 cents; however, as at October 2011, only 5 and 20 cent coins, are currently in circulation, the latest mintage of these two coins was in 2010. A Half Rupee coin is also in circulation.-History:The rupee was established by...
, Seychelles, Maldives
Maldivian rufiyaa
The rufiyaa is the currency of the Maldives. Determining the rate for the US Dollar and the issuance of the currency is controlled by the Maldives Monetary Authority . The most commonly used symbols for the rufiyaa are MRF and Rf. The ISO 4217 code for Maldivian rufiyaa is MVR. The rufiyaa is...
, and formerly in Burma
Burmese rupee
The rupee was the currency of Burma between 1852 and 1952, except for the years 1943-1945.-History:When Burma was conquered by the British, the Indian rupee replaced the kyat at par. From 1897, the government of India issued notes in Rangoon of the same general type as were issued in India but...
, and Afghanistan
Afghan rupee
The rupee was the currency of Afghanistan until 1925. Before 1891, silver rupees circulated with copper falus and gold mohur. The three metals had no fixed exchange rate between them, with different regions issuing their own coins....
. Historically, the first currency called "rupee" was introduced in the 16th century. The term is from rūpya-, a Sanskrit term for silver coin
Silver coin
Silver coins are possibly the oldest mass produced form of coinage. Silver has been used as a coinage metal since the times of the Greeks. Their silver drachmas were popular trade coins....
.
In the Maldives
Maldives
The Maldives , , officially Republic of Maldives , also referred to as the Maldive Islands, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of twenty-six atolls oriented north-south off India's Lakshadweep islands, between Minicoy Island and...
, the unit of currency is known as the rufiyah, which is a cognate word of Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
rupiya. Both the Indian rupee
Indian rupee
The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....
s and the Pakistani
Pakistani rupee
The rupee is the currency of Pakistan. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the State Bank of Pakistan, the central bank of the country. The most commonly used symbol for the rupee is Rs, used on receipts when purchasing goods and services. In Pakistan, the rupee is referred to as the...
are subdivided into one hundred paise
Paisa
The paisa is a monetary unit in several countries. Linguistic variants of paisa include poisha and baisa . In India, Nepal and Pakistan, the paisa currently equals of a rupee. In Bangladesh, the poisha equals of a Bangladeshi taka...
(singular paisa) or pice. The Mauritian
Mauritian rupee
The rupee is the currency of Mauritius.It is theoretically divided into 100 cents; however, as at October 2011, only 5 and 20 cent coins, are currently in circulation, the latest mintage of these two coins was in 2010. A Half Rupee coin is also in circulation.-History:The rupee was established by...
and Sri Lankan rupee
Sri Lankan rupee
The rupee is the currency of Sri Lanka, divided into 100 cents. It is issued by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and is generally written Rs. The rupee (Sinhala: රුපියල , Tamil: ரூபாய்) (sign: ₨; code: LKR) is the currency of Sri Lanka, divided into 100 cents. It is issued by the Central Bank of Sri...
s subdivide into 100 cents. The Nepalese rupee
Nepalese rupee
The rupee is the official currency of Nepal. The present rupee has the ISO 4217 code NPR and is normally abbreviated with the sign ₨. It is subdivided into 100 paisa. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Nepal Rastra Bank...
subdivides into one hundred paisas (both singular and plural) or four Suka
Sukaa
Sukaa or Suka is one of the denominations of the Nepalese Rupee. One suka is equal to 25 paisa and four sukas make a rupee. Also, two sukas make a mohor....
s or two Mohor
Mohor
Mohar is one of the denominations of the Nepalese Rupee. One mohar is equal to 50 paisa and two mohars make a rupee. Also, two sukaas make a mohar.Mohar named for Nepalese Rupee from Mahendra Malla in 16th century...
s.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
's currency was also denominated in Afghan rupee
Afghan rupee
The rupee was the currency of Afghanistan until 1925. Before 1891, silver rupees circulated with copper falus and gold mohur. The three metals had no fixed exchange rate between them, with different regions issuing their own coins....
s until 1925, with each Afghan rupee subdividing into 60 paisas. Prior to the introduction of the Afghan rupee in 1891, the legal currency was the Kabuli rupee. Until the middle of the twentieth century, Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
's official currency was also known as the Tibetan rupee. The Indian rupee was the official currency of Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...
and Qatar
Qatar
Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...
until 1959, when India created a new Gulf rupee
Gulf rupee
The Gulf rupee, also known as the Persian Gulf rupee , was a currency used in the countries of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula between 1959 and 1966...
(also known as the "External rupee") to hinder the smuggling of gold. The Gulf rupee was legal tender until 1966, when India significantly devalued the Indian rupee and a new Qatar-Dubai Riyal
Qatari riyal
The riyal is the currency of the State of Qatar. It is divided into 100 dirham and is abbreviated as either QR or ر.ق .- History :...
was established to provide economic stability.
Alternative names and pronunciations
"Rupee" is abbreviated as Re. (singular), Rs. (plural) and as sign (Indian rupee symbol) in the case of the Indian rupeeIndian rupee
The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....
, a combination of the Devanagari letter "र" (ra
Ra
Ra is the ancient Egyptian sun god. By the Fifth Dynasty he had become a major deity in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the mid-day sun...
) and the Latin
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
capital letter "R").
Various languages render the word 'rupee' slightly differently -
- AssameseAssamese languageAssamese is the easternmost Indo-Aryan language. It is used mainly in the state of Assam in North-East India. It is also the official language of Assam. It is also spoken in parts of Arunachal Pradesh and other northeast Indian states. Nagamese, an Assamese-based Creole language is widely used in...
: টকা ṭakā - Bangla: টাকা ṭākā
- DhivehiDhivehi languageMaldivian is an Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by about 350,000 people in the Maldives where it is the national language. It is also the first language of nearly 10,000 people in the island of Minicoy in the Union territory of Lakshadweep, India where the Mahl dialect of the Maldivian...
: ރުފިޔާ rufiyā - GujaratiGujarati languageGujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages...
: રૂપિયો rupiyo - FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
: roupie - Hindi-Urdu: रुपया روپیہ rupiyā
- IndonesianIndonesian languageIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
: rupiah - Kannada: ರೂಪಾಯಿ rūpāyi
- Malayalam: രൂപ rūpa
- MarathiMarathi languageMarathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...
: रुपया rupayā - NepaliNepali languageNepali or Nepalese is a language in the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family.It is the official language and de facto lingua franca of Nepal and is also spoken in Bhutan, parts of India and parts of Myanmar...
: रुपैया rupaiyā - OriyaOriya languageOriya , officially Odia from November, 2011, is an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. It is mainly spoken in the Indian states of Orissa and West Bengal...
: ଟଙ୍କା ṭaṁkā - Pashto: روپۍ rupëi
- PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
: rupia - PunjabiPunjabi languagePunjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...
: ਰੁਪਈਆ rupīā - Sinhala: රුපියල rupiyal
- SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
: rupia - SanskritSanskritSanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
: रूप्यकम् rūpyakam - TamilTamil languageTamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
: ரூபாய் rūbāy - TeluguTelugu languageTelugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...
: రూపాయి rūpāyi - TurkishTurkish languageTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
: Rupi
Etymology
The Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) word rūpiya is derived form SanskritSanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
word rūpya, 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
Rupa
In Hinduism and Buddhism, rūpa generally refers to material objects, particularly in regards to their appearance.-Definition:According to the Monier-Williams Dictionary , rūpa is defined as:...
"shape, likeness, image."
The word rūpiya as the name of a specific silver coin was introduced by Pashtun
Pashtun people
Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
(Afghan) Emperor Sher Shah Suri
Sher Shah Suri
Sher Shah Suri , birth name Farid Khan, also known as Sher Khan , was the founder of the short-lived Sur Empire in northern India, with its capital at Delhi, before its demise in the hands of the resurgent Mughal Empire...
during his brief rule of northern India between (1540–1545). It was used for the silver coin
Silver coin
Silver coins are possibly the oldest mass produced form of coinage. Silver has been used as a coinage metal since the times of the Greeks. Their silver drachmas were popular trade coins....
weighing 178 grains.
He also introduced copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
coins called Dam
Dam (coin)
This article is about coinage. For other uses, see Dam .A Dam was a small Indian copper coin. The coin was first introduced by Sher Shah Suri during his rule of India between 1540 and 1545, along with Mohur, the gold coin and Rupiya the silver coin Later on, the Mughal Emperors standardised the...
and gold coin
Gold coin
A gold coin is a coin made mostly or entirely of gold. Gold has been used for coins practically since the invention of coinage, originally because of gold's intrinsic value...
s called Mohur
Mohur
A Mohur is a gold coin that was formerly minted by several governments including British India , the Moghul Empire, Nepal, and Afghanistan. It was usually equivalent in value to fifteen silver rupees. It was last minted in British India in 1918, but some princely states issued them until...
that weighed 169 grains.
Later on, the Mughal Emperors standardised this coinage of tri-metalism across the sub-continent in order to consolidate the monetary system.
Value
The derivative word Rūpaya was used to denote the coin introduced by Sher Shah SuriSher Shah Suri
Sher Shah Suri , birth name Farid Khan, also known as Sher Khan , was the founder of the short-lived Sur Empire in northern India, with its capital at Delhi, before its demise in the hands of the resurgent Mughal Empire...
during his reign from 1540 to 1545. The original Rūpaya was a silver coin weighing 178 grains
Grain (measure)
A grain is a unit of measurement of mass that is nominally based upon the mass of a single seed of a cereal. From the Bronze Age into the Renaissance the average masses of wheat and barley grains were part of the legal definition of units of mass. However, there is no evidence of any country ever...
(11.534 grams) . The coin has been used since then, even during the times of British India, defined as 11.66g of .917% silver with an ASW of .3437 of a Troy ounce (that is, silver worth about US$10 at modern prices). At the end of the 19th century the Indian silver rupee went unto a gold exchange standard at a fixed rate of 1 rupee to one shilling and fourpence in British currency, or 77 rupees to 1 pound sterling
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
.
Valuation of the rupee based on its silver content had severe consequences in the nineteenth century, when the strongest economies in the world were on the gold standard
Gold standard
The gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed mass of gold. There are distinct kinds of gold standard...
. The discovery of vast quantities of silver in the United States and various European colonies resulted in a decline in the relative value of silver to gold. Suddenly the standard currency of India could not buy as much from the outside world. This development was known as "the fall of the rupee".
Denomination
Formerly the rupee (11.66 g, .917 fine silver) was divided into 16 annas, 64 paise, or 192 pies. Early 19th century East India CompanyEast India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
rupees were used in Australia for a limited period. Decimalisation
Decimalisation
Decimal currency is the term used to describe any currency that is based on one basic unit of currency and a sub-unit which is a power of 10, most commonly 100....
occurred in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1969, India in 1957 and in Pakistan in 1961. Thus an Indian rupee is now divided into 100 Paise and so is the Pakistani rupee. Paisa is sometimes referred to as Naya-Paisa, meaning the "new-money" in India, a habit continued from when India became independent—when the new country introduced new currency, people used Naya-Paisa to distinguish it from the old currency. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India
Reserve Bank of India
The Reserve Bank of India is the central banking institution of India and controls the monetary policy of the rupee as well as US$300.21 billion of currency reserves. The institution was established on 1 April 1935 during the British Raj in accordance with the provisions of the Reserve Bank of...
, whereas in the Pakistan it is controlled by State Bank of Pakistan
State Bank of Pakistan
The State Bank of Pakistan is the central bank of Pakistan. While its constitution, as originally laid down in the State Bank of Pakistan Order 1948, remained basically unchanged until January 1, 1974, when the bank was nationalized, the scope of its functions was considerably enlarged...
. The most commonly used symbol for the rupee is "Rs.". India adopted a new symbol for Indian rupees on 15 July 2010.
In most parts of India, the rupee is known as rupaya, rupaye, or one of other terms derived from the Sanskrit rupya, meaning silver. However, in the Bengali and Assamese languages, spoken in Assam, Tripura, and West Bengal, the rupee is known as a Taka, and is written as such on Indian banknotes. In India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
currency is issued in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 rupees. Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
currency is also issued in a denomination of 5000 rupees. Large denominations of rupees are often counted in lakh
Lakh
A lakh is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand . It is widely used both in official and other contexts in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and is often used in Indian English.-Usage:...
(100,000 = 1 Lakh, 100 Lakh = 1 Crore
Crore
A crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....
/karor, 100 Crore/karor = 1 Arab , 100 Arab = 1 Kharab/khrab, 100 Kharab/khrab = 1 Neel
Neel
Neel may refer to:* Alice Neel film about painter Alice Neel* Neel, in Indian numbering system* Neel Kamal directed by Kidar Nath Sharma- Neel as a first name :* Neel Akasher Neechey, a Bengali language film director...
, 100 Neel = 1 Padam
Padam
Padam may refer to:*"Padam... Padam...",is the town area place in Tahsil Jasrana Dist Firozabad UP . Padam*"Padam... Padam...", a song by Édith Piaf*Padum, a place in Ladakh of India*Padam , an indigenous people of India...
, 100 Padam = 1 Rajam, 100 Rajam = 1 Uroos, 100 Uroos= 1 Zahra and Ammar). Terms beyond a crore are not generally used in the context of money, e.g. an amount would be called Rs 1 lakh crore (equivalent to 1 trillion) instead of Rs 10 Kharab.
The rupee on the East African Coast and South Arabia
In East AfricaEast Africa
East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
, Arabia, and Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
the rupee and its subsidiary coinage was current at various times. The usage of the rupee in East Africa extended from Somalia
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
in the north, to as far south as Natal
Colony of Natal
The Colony of Natal was a British colony in south-eastern Africa. It was proclaimed a British colony on May 4, 1843 after the British government had annexed the Boer Republic of Natalia, and on 31 May 1910 combined with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa, as one of its...
. In Mozambique the British India rupees were overstamped, and in Kenya the British East Africa Company minted the rupee and its fractions as well as pice. The rise in the price of silver immediately after the first world war
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
caused the rupee to rise in value to two shillings sterling
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
. In 1920 in British East Africa, the opportunity was then taken to introduce a new florin
East African florin
The florin was the currency of the British colonies and protectorates of East Africa between 1920 and 1921. It was divided into 100 cents. It replaced the rupee at par and was replaced by the shilling at a rate of 2 shillings = 1 florin...
coin, hence bringing the currency into line with sterling. Shortly after that, the Florin was split into two East African shilling
East African shilling
The shilling was the currency issued for use in British controlled areas in East Africa from 1921 until 1969. It was produced by the East African Currency Board...
s. This assimilation to sterling
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
did not however happen in British India itself. In Somalia the Italian colonial authority minted 'rupia' to exactly the same standard, and called the pice 'besa'.
The rupee in the Straits Settlements
The Straits SettlementsStraits Settlements
The Straits Settlements were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia.Originally established in 1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Company, the Straits Settlements came under direct British control as a crown colony on 1 April 1867...
were originally an outier of the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
. The Spanish dollar
Spanish dollar
The Spanish dollar is a silver coin, of approximately 38 mm diameter, worth eight reales, that was minted in the Spanish Empire after a Spanish currency reform in 1497. Its purpose was to correspond to the German thaler...
had already taken hold in the Straits Settlements
Straits Settlements
The Straits Settlements were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia.Originally established in 1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Company, the Straits Settlements came under direct British control as a crown colony on 1 April 1867...
by the time the British arrived in the 19th century, however, the East India Company tried to introduce the rupee in its place. These attempts were resisted by the locals, and by 1867 when the British government took over direct control of the Straits Settlements
Straits Settlements
The Straits Settlements were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia.Originally established in 1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Company, the Straits Settlements came under direct British control as a crown colony on 1 April 1867...
from the East India Company, attempts to introduce the rupee were finally abandoned.
Sign
It is common to find a prefix before the digits denoting the rupee currency value written as "Re. 1" (For one unit), or "Rs. 140" (for more than one rupee).The Indian rupee
Indian rupee
The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....
is represented by the Indian rupee sign
Indian rupee sign
The Indian rupee sign is the currency sign used for the Indian rupee, the official currency of India. It is relatively new, the design only having been presented to the public by the Government of India on 15 July 2010, following its selection through an open competition among Indian residents...
, .
On 5 March 2009, the Indian government announced a contest to create a sign for the Indian rupee. During the 2010 Union Budget
2010 Union budget of India
The Union budget of India for 2010-11 was presented by Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in the Lok Sabha on Friday, February 26, 2010. -Highlights :* The Indian economy was facing grave uncertainty...
, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee
Pranab Mukherjee
Pranab Kumar Mukherjee is the current Finance Minister of India and leader of the current Lok Sabha.Mukherjee is a senior member of the Cabinet Committees on Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Parliamentary Affairs, Political Affairs, Prices, Security, Unique Identification Authority of India,...
mentioned that the proposed sign would reflect and capture the Indian ethos and culture. Five signs created by Nondita Correa-Mehrotra, Hitesh Padmashali, Shibin KK, Shahrukh J Irani, and D Udaya Kumar had been short-listed from around 3331 responses received and one of them was to be finalized at the Union Council of Ministers of India meeting held on 24 June 2010. The decision was deferred by a request of the Finance Minister, and it was decided when they met again on 15 July 2010, and selected the symbol created by D.Udaya Kumar son of N. Dharmalingam, a former DMK MLA.
The selection process was challenged under the Right to Information Act
Right to Information Act
The Right to Information Act 2005 is an Act of the Parliament of India "to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens." The Act applies to all States and Union Territories of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Jammu and Kashmir has its own act...
in the Delhi High Court
Delhi High Court
The High Court of Delhi was established on 31 October 1966. The High Court of Delhi was established with four judges. They were Chief Justice K. S. Hegde, Justice I. D. Dua, Justice H. R. Khanna and Justice S. K. Kapur.-History:...
. The petitioner, Rakesh Kumar, who was a participant in the competition, described the process as "full of discrepancies" and "flawed", and named the Finance Ministry and the chairman of Indian Rupee Symbol Selection Committee as respondents.
On 26 November 2010, the Delhi High single bench Court dismissed the writ petition, stating there was no justifiable ground for the stated allegations. But on March 31, 2011, Chief Justice and Justice Sanjiv Khanna of Delhi High Court in their judgment court allowed RTI activist Rakesh Kumar Singh to file PIL against “Indian Rupee symbol selection process”.
According to Guideline No. 5 of the contest process, submitted symbols were required to be "in the Indian National Language Script or a visual representation". It has been argued that this violates the Constitution of India
Constitution of India
The Constitution of India is the supreme law of India. It lays down the framework defining fundamental political principles, establishes the structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions, and sets out fundamental rights, directive principles, and the duties of citizens...
, because that does not specify any particular Indian Language Script as the Indian National Language Script.
Fictional use
The rupee is the currency used in the Legend of Zelda and RappelzRappelz
Rappelz is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing game. The game is developed by the Korean company Gala Lab, formerly nFlavor, and published by the Californian company Gala-Net Inc. It is published in Europe by Gala Networks Europe in French, German, Italian, Polish and Turkish...
video games.
In Super Paper Mario
Super Paper Mario
is a platform style console role-playing game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. Originally developed for the Nintendo GameCube, it was released for the Wii in 2007. The style of gameplay is a combination of the previous Paper Mario titles and Super Mario Bros. titles...
, the protagonist, Mario, is forced to collect rupees in Chapter 2.
Famously referred to by Miss Prism in Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
's The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations...
:
"Cecily, you will read your Political Economy in my absence. The chapter on the Fall of the Rupee you may omit. It is somewhat too sensational. Even these metallic problems have their melodramatic side."
See also
- History of the rupeeHistory of the rupeeAncient India, presently modern states of Pakistan and north-western India, was one of the earliest issuers of coins in the world , along with the Chinese wen and Lydian staters....
- CroreCroreA crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....
, a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to ten million (10,000,000), used for large Rupee amounts