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Javanese picis / cash accounting

A ferry crossing could carry an obligation to the court.1

Years
Under research
Where
Java
Family
Other origins
Status
Under research

A ferry crossing could carry an obligation to the court. The charter of 1358 assessed an annual festival payment of 400 cash for each ferryman. Cash was a way of stating what people owed.1

The Karang Bogem charter of 1387 gives a larger example: a fisherman’s debt of 120,000 cash. The same passage measures a delivery of fish preserve by the weight of cash, a different use of the coins from counting the debt itself.2

A fuller story is under research.

Timeline

  1. Older legal values re-expressed

    The timing of the transition remains approximate.3

  2. A ferryman’s annual payment

    The charter states 400 cash for each ferryman.1

  3. A debt of 120,000 cash

    The Karang Bogem charter records the obligation.2

Coins and notes

Images are under research. Each image will carry its caption, collection credit and public-domain or CC0 license.

How do we know?

Old Javanese masa–suwarna accounting → Javanese picis / cash accounting

Qualified account system transition · 1296–1358

Old Javanese legal adaptations express fines or payments first in indigenous ma–su–ku terms and also in cash amounts. Wicks connects this re-expression of values with the move to picis reckoning around 1300. The account succession is qualified: the legal glosses are not precisely dated, and 1296–1358 bounds the dated evidence rather than an exact conversion decree.3

Verbatim source excerpt under research. The linked notes identify the source and passage supporting this connection.

Full connection evidence →

Complete evidence record →
Legal history and sources
Dated obligations
1358 and 1387
Earlier account link
Masa–suwarna succession inferred; precise conversion date uncertain

The 1358 Ferry Charter assesses an annual festival payment of 400 cash for each ferryman. This is a dated obligation in the Javanese picis system.1

The 1387 Karang Bogem charter records a fisherman’s debt of 120,000 cash. The cash amount denotes a debt; a separate fish-preserve delivery in the passage is measured by the weight of cash.2

Old Javanese legal adaptations express fines or payments first in indigenous ma–su–ku terms and also in cash amounts. Wicks connects this re-expression of values with the move to picis reckoning around 1300. The account succession is qualified: the legal glosses are not precisely dated, and 1296–1358 bounds the dated evidence rather than an exact conversion decree.3

Legal texts also re-expressed older ma–su–ku amounts as cash values. That provides a qualified connection to earlier Javanese reckoning, although the glosses have no precise conversion date. Imported coins alone do not establish a Chinese account-unit parent.3

Source notes

  1. Robert S. Wicks · Monetary Developments in Java between the Ninth and Sixteenth Centuries: A Numismatic Perspective, Indonesia 42 (1986), 42–77

    pp. 59–62, especially p. 60 n. 67; 1294/1296 inscriptions, legal translations, 1358 ferry tax and 1387 debt

  2. Robert S. Wicks · Monetary Developments in Java between the Ninth and Sixteenth Centuries: A Numismatic Perspective, Indonesia 42 (1986), 42–77

    pp. 59–62, especially p. 60 n. 67; 1294/1296 inscriptions, legal translations, 1358 ferry tax and 1387 debt

  3. Robert S. Wicks · Monetary Developments in Java between the Ninth and Sixteenth Centuries: A Numismatic Perspective, Indonesia 42 (1986), 42–77

    pp. 59–62, especially p. 60 n. 67; 1294/1296 inscriptions, legal translations, 1358 ferry tax and 1387 debt

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Cite this currency

“Javanese picis / cash accounting.” The Family Tree of Money. Field Technologies, Inc. Data v51; accessed 15 October 2026.

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