UPSC Prelims 2022 Q52: What Was 'Fanam' in Medieval India? Explained

In medieval India, the term "Fanam" referred to:

  1. Clothing
  2. Coins
  3. Ornaments
  4. Weapons

Answer: (b) Coins

Statement-wise explanation

  • a: incorrect — Fanam was not a kind of clothing. Medieval Indian cloth names that UPSC asks about are words like 'patola' or 'muslin', and fanam is not one of them. The word comes from the Tamil–Malayalam 'panam', which means money.
  • b: correct — The fanam was a small coin of South India, usually gold. It was struck by the Vijayanagara rulers and by the Kerala kingdoms of Travancore, Cochin and Calicut, and the English East India Company later minted it at Madras. Fanams show up in 12th-century trade records from Quilon (Kollam) on the Malabar coast. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a 17th-century gold fanam that weighs about 0.3 g, so it was a very small, low-value piece next to the larger gold pagoda (varaha or hun).
  • c: incorrect — Fanam was not an ornament. Gold fanams were sometimes later set into necklaces, but the word itself means a coin, a unit of money. It never meant a type of jewellery.
  • d: incorrect — Fanam was not a weapon. Nothing in the sources links the word to arms. It is always a monetary unit, and its root 'panam' means money.

How to eliminate

This one is mostly a recall question. No absolute words or statement logic help, because each option is a single noun. One clue does help. 'Fanam' sounds like 'panam', the common South Indian word for money (Tamil and Malayalam 'panam', Kannada 'hana'). A candidate who knows that word can link fanam to money. If you don't, the fact to remember is this: the fanam was a small gold coin, worth a fraction of the pagoda, used in Vijayanagara and Kerala and later minted by the East India Company at Madras. UPSC likes to ask the meaning of medieval terms, so keep a short list of coin names: tanka, jital, hun/pagoda, fanam, rupiya, dam.

Know more

Coins of medieval South India

South Indian kingdoms relied mainly on gold coins, while the Delhi Sultanate built its system on silver and billon. Vijayanagara coins were mostly gold and copper. Many of its gold coins showed a deity, often Lord Venkateswara of Tirupati, on one side and the king's name on the other. Its coins set a regional standard of weight and design. That standard shaped southern coinage into the 19th century: the Dutch and French copied it in their 'Single Swami' pagodas and the English East India Company in its 'Three Swami' pagodas (RBI Monetary Museum).

The denominations formed a ladder. The big gold coin was the varaha, which Europeans called the pagoda and Persian writers the hun. Smaller gold pieces sat below it, and the fanam was a tiny one that weighed only a fraction of a gram. The jital was a small coin of the Delhi Sultanate, not of the South. On the Malabar coast the fanam stayed the everyday unit of money in Travancore until modern times.

Term Region / issuer Metal Note
Tanka Delhi Sultanate (Iltutmish onwards) Silver (also gold) Standard high-value coin of the north
Jital Delhi Sultanate Copper/billon Small change
Varaha / Pagoda / Hun Vijayanagara, Deccan, later EIC Gold Main gold coin of the South
Fanam Vijayanagara, Kerala kingdoms, EIC Madras Mostly gold (later silver) Small coin, a fraction of a pagoda
Rupiya Sher Shah Suri, Mughals Silver Ancestor of the rupee
Dam Sher Shah Suri, Mughals Copper Small change

Dynastic emblems also show up on southern coins: the boar of the Chalukyas, the fish of the Pandyas, the tiger of the Cholas and the elephant of the Cheras.

NCERT Concepts to Revise

  • Tanka and jital: Tanka and jital are medieval Indian terms of the same type this question tests. Compare their region and period with the fanam.
  • Token currency: Tughlaq's token currency is another medieval term UPSC asks about, useful when sorting the terms by what they mean.
  • Kushana gold coins: Kushana gold coins began India's gold coin tradition, which southern kingdoms carried on in the medieval period.

Read more