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.