Ala-ud-Din Khilji's reign produced some of the most aggressive monetary and economic reforms in medieval Indian history. He imposed sweeping market price controls across Delhi — fixing the cost of grain, livestock, and cloth — and required all transactions to be conducted in coin, effectively forcing his coinage into circulation at a scale few sultans had managed. The gold tanka was the backbone of that system, used to pay the vast standing army he assembled for campaigns into the Deccan and to repel four separate Mongol invasions between 1297 and 1306.
Ala-ud-Din Khilji's reign produced some of the most aggressive monetary and economic reforms in medieval Indian history. He imposed sweeping market price controls across Delhi — fixing the cost of grain, livestock, and cloth — and required all transactions to be conducted in coin, effectively forcing his coinage into circulation at a scale few sultans had managed. The gold tanka was the backbone of that system, used to pay the vast standing army he assembled for campaigns into the Deccan and to repel four separate Mongol invasions between 1297 and 1306.