East, South and Southeast Asia
In China, cowries were so important that many characters relating to money or trade contain the character for cowry: 貝. Starting over three thousand years ago, cowry shells, or copies of the shells, were used as Chinese currency. The Classical Chinese character for "money/currency", 貝, originated as a pictograph of a cowrie shell.
Cowries were formerly used as means of exchange in India. In Bengal, where it required 3840 to make a rupee, the annual importation was valued at about 30,000 rupees.
In Southeast Asia, when the value of the Siamese tical (baht) was about half a troy ounce of silver, the value of the cowrie (Thai: เบี้ย bia) was fixed at 1⁄6400 Baht. In modern Thailand, it refers to interest paid for the use of money borrowed or deposited; bia wat เบี้ยหวัด is a military pension.
Read more about this topic: Shell Money
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