3. India
Of the measures and weights of India, a country containing one-fifth of the population of the world, divided into many nationalities, only a slight sketch can be given, and that chiefly of the measures used in British India as distinguished from the tributary states. The measures of the Aryan population of Hindustan, and those of the Dravidian peoples of peninsular India, are different; moreover the influence of the Moslem conquerors, Mogul and Pathan, of the Portuguese in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of the English in more modern times, has modified these measures.
As in other Eastern countries the linear unit is usually a cubit, the hástha or háth, divided into 24 digits. Traces of the Egyptian increased cubit are to be found. In a classical work on architecture, the Mánasára, the Hástha, of 24 digits for timber, is increased to 25 for temples, to 26 for houses, to 27 for municipal buildings and land. The addition of 3 digits to the 24 of the Egyptian common cubit would give 27 digits, approximately equal to the 28 smaller digits of the royal cubit.
In Southern India the cubit is sometimes the mūyangál (mūyam, cubit; kál, leg), the length from the knee to the ankle.
In Malabar the unit is the Kol = 28-1/4 inches as used for timber; but for land it seems to have increased to 30 inches.
The kol was probably 3 spans or half-cubits of 9·41 inches.
A guz brought by the Moslems, = 33 inches, has established itself in Bengal. It was probably 3 Beládi feet of 10·944 inches.
The Portuguese Covado of 3 spans = 27·17 inches, usually taken as 27 inches, has established itself in Western India. It is divided into 48 digits, of which two-thirds, i.e. 32 digits = 18 inches, are the usual cubit; 1/8 of this = the English nail.
All these measures appear to have been modified by the English foot and inch.
Native itinerary measures are rough and variable; the Koss of 100 fathoms is the usual standard.
Land-measures are of course very variable.
12 guz, usually = 33 feet, make a cord or chain, and 5 cords make a Jarib = 10 rods. A square jarib = 100 square rods, is the usual Bigha of Northern India = O·625 acre.
Another unit is the Mah of 100 rods 12 × 12 feet = 1600 square yards, about half the above bigha.
Land-units, like most other units, can be divided into 16 annas, so that the anna of the bigha is 200, that of the Mah is 100, square yards.
In Madras the unit of land measure is the Káni (cawny) = 1-1/3 acre of 24 grounds = 6400 square yards. So there appears to be a common unit of about 1600 square yards, with its anna or sixteenth = 100 square yards or 10 yards square.
Five káni make a Véli, the usual extent of arable land which can be cultivated for rice or other wet crops by a peasant with a yoke of oxen.
Everywhere there are seed-measures of land, as in other countries.
Weights
These are derived from a coin-weight basis, the silver rupee-weight or Tola in most parts, the golden pagoda-weight or Varahan in the south of India. In each case 80 of these coin-units made a Sér. (See Indian Coinage, in [Chap. XIII].)
| The Bengal sér, 80 tolas of 180 grs. | = | 14,400 | grs. |
| The Madras sér, 80 varahan of 54 „ | = | 4320 | „ |
The Bombay sér was based on another gold coin, the tanc (gold) of a little over 68 grains, 72 of which = 4900 grains.
The Bengal sér is, curiously enough, = 2 Cologne pounds of 7200 grains. It is divided into 16 chittaks or double ounces of 5 tolas. The tola is divided into 12 mashas (= 15 grains) of 8 ráti (the red seed of Abrus precatoria): 40 sér make a mánd = 82·28 lb.
This sér (Ang. seer), the Government standard, is really a Troy weight. The rupee of different standard in the three presidencies was fixed in 1833 at 180 grains, 3 drachms of the Troy ounce; this being so, the sér of 80 rupees weight is = 30 Troy ounces and the mánd of 40 sérs is = 1200 Troy ounces or 100 Troy pounds.
About 1870-72 the metric propaganda was epidemic among Indian Government Engineers; light railways were made on metre-gauge, and a nearly successful attempt was made to get the sér fixed at one kilogramme. An Act was about to be passed to this effect when the death of Lord Mayo stopped it, and the Act fell through.
The Bengal sér and mánd[[34]] are the usual weights for official purposes. Some other sérs are used, often of low standard known as Kucha sérs (unripe, half-baked) in regard to the pukka (ripe, full-measure) sér of 80 tolas.
The Madras mánd was = 24·68 lb.; 20 mánd = 1 kándi, 493·7 lb.; but English trade considered the mánd as 25 lb. and the ‘candy’ as 500 lb.
Madras had also a weight called the Vísham (Ang. Viss) of 120 tolas = 5 of its sérs, or 3·086 lb. divided into 40 pollams.
Capacity
To this Madras weight corresponds the Adangáli, dangáli or puddi, or measure containing a vísham of grain, and therefore a pound-pint measure = about 3 pints. It is the usual measure of the daily grain-wage of agricultural labourers.
Similarly in other parts of India, the sér measure contains a sér weight of the usual food grain.
The measure is usually heaped, and whether sér or dangáli it delivers approximately either a sér or a vísham of the usual grains, rice, wheat, millet, pulse, &c. It is a pound-pint measure, avoiding the use of the balance. The Madras Government wanted to fix the dangáli at 100 cubic inches, but this would have been useless as not delivering a vísham. The necessary capacity to deliver a vísham of water is found by 3·086 lb. × 27·725 to be 85·76 cubic inches. Increased in the Southern water-wheat ratio of 1 : 1·22, we have 104·62 cubic inches as the true dangáli measure. So Government allowed 104-1/4 cubic inches, and this was about the capacity of a dangáli 8 inches high by 4 inches diameter, often a section of bamboo cut down to the proper capacity.
In Madras, the dangáli, puddi or measure is then = 104-1/4 c.i. divided into 8 ollocks; and 8 dangáli = 1 Mercál; 424 mercáls, = 120 Bengal mánds, made a Garce, which is a Government measure for salt = 4·4 tons.
The cubic measure used in Southern India for dry goods, such as lime, is the Parah = 5 mercáls = 5 × 8 dangáli, or 4000 cubic inches at 100 c.i. to the dangáli: but 4184 c.i. at the customary capacity of that measure; so the parah is = 15 gallons.
The Bombay parah = 4-1/2 gallons.
The Ceylon parah = 5·6 gallons; 8 parah = 1 amómam = 5·6 bushels.
To the amómam of grain corresponds the amómam of land, which, at 2 bushels seed to the acre, = 2·8 acres. By measurement it is 2·74 acres.