Page 433, line 7 of Sinhalese text. For deggatten read daeggatten.
VOLUME III.
Page 29, note 1. Through the kindness of Messrs. H. B. Andris and Co., I am able to add the following information regarding Kandian dry measures, chiefly furnished by Mr. A. J. W. Marambe, Raṭēmahatmayā of Uḍa Bulatgama. In the Kandian districts only heaped dry measures are employed, that is, the grain or whatever is being measured is raised up above the edge of the measure in as high a cone as is possible while pouring it out loosely.
Kandian Dry Measures.
| 2 heaped pat (pl. of pata) | = 1 heaped manāwa[4] (0.01146 c. ft.). |
| 2 heaped manā | = 1 heaped naeliya (0.02292 c. ft.). |
| 2 heaped naeli | = 1 heaped sēruwa (0.04584 c. ft.). |
| 28 heaped sēru (or 32 cut sēru) | = 1 imperial or cut bushel (1.28366 c. ft.). |
| 5 heaped sēru | = 1 standard kuruṇiya or lāhe. |
| 10 heaped kuruṇi, lāhas or lās | = 1 pāēla. |
| 4 pāēl | = 1 amuṇa. |
| 20 amuṇu | = 1 yāla. |
A sēruwa is a quart. Although the standard Kandian kuruṇiya is said by Mr. Marambe to be one of five heaped sēru, there are others, according to him, of 4, 6 and 7 heaped sēru, the latter being said to be employed in the Wanni or northern districts. In the interior of the North-Western Province, to the north and east of Kurunāēgala, where most of the folk-tales were collected, the kuruṇiya was said to contain four heaped sēru, according to which the local amuṇa would be 5.71 bushels. The Kandian amuṇa, at five sēru to the kuruṇiya, would be equal to 7.1 bushels. An amuṇa of land is the extent sown by one amuṇa of seed, and varies according to the quality of the soil, less seed being needed for good land than poor land, where the plants are small. In the North-Western Province, an amuṇa of rice field is about two and a quarter acres, the amount of seed varying from two to three bushels per acre. One and a half heaped sēru of kurahan (small millet) yield an amuṇa of crop in good chena soil; the yield from one heaped sēruwa of tana, an edible grass cultivated in hill chenas, varies from one to two amuṇas; for the same out-turn with menēri four sēru of seed are necessary.
[1] This is the intrinsic value compared with our money; the purchasing value may have been thirty times as high in the stories, in which a masurama was paid for a day’s food of rice and curry, and a country pony was bought for fifty. [↑]
[2] A pound of copper was priced at 9.8d. of our money; the present wholesale values (July 9, 1914) are—silver, 25⅞d. per oz. (Troy); copper, £62 5s. per ton, the ratio being 41.566. [↑]