1 Rupee and 8 Annas Hundi promissory note

Bikaner State operated its own treasury and issued indigenous financial instruments well into the British paramountcy period, when formal banking infrastructure in the princely states remained thin. A hundi of this denomination — 1 Rupee 8 Annas — sits at the lower end of the denomination range, suggesting it circulated among merchants and traders rather than for large commercial transactions.

The hundi as a financial instrument predates European-style banknotes in the subcontinent by centuries, functioning as a negotiable bill of exchange enforceable by custom and mercantile trust rather than statutory banking law. Bikaner's state-issued hundis represent the formal absorption of that indigenous credit tradition into princely fiscal administration.