Pope’s Tamil Hand-Book (2nd ed., 1859), p. 18, gives a useful list of such symbols used in “Cutchery Tamil” of the colonial period, but I do not find your symbol among them. I attach the relevant page.

Timothy Lubin

Professor of Religion and Adjunct Professor of Law

Washington and Lee University

Lexington, Virginia 24450

http://home.wlu.edu/~lubint

http://wlu.academia.edu/TimothyLubin

https://twitter.com/TimothyLubin

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From: Manu Francis <Manufrancis@gmail.com>
Date: Friday, April 17, 2015 at 6:58 AM
To: Indology <indology@list.indology.info>
Subject: [INDOLOGY] Tamil currency symbol

Dear Colleagues,

In one of the Tamil manuscripts I am working on, I have found the mention of a price.

This currency is expressed by a symbol (see attached images).

I guess this symbol means "rupee", but I am not sure.

Has any of you ever seen such a symbol?
Or could direct me towards any source illustrating currency symbols used in Tamil and/or Indian manuscripts/inscriptions?

With many thanks in advance.

--

Emmanuel Francis
Chargé de recherche CNRS, Centre d'étude de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud (UMR 8564, EHESS-CNRS, Paris)
http://ceias.ehess.fr/
http://ceias.ehess.fr/index.php?1725
http://rcsi.hypotheses.org/
Associate member, Centre for the Study of Manuscript Culture (SFB 950, Universität Hamburg)
http://www.manuscript-cultures.uni-hamburg.de/index_e.html
https://cnrs.academia.edu/emmanuelfrancis