In the Pali vocabulary called Abhidhānappadīpīkā, which is of the 12th century, the word appears in the form koss; and nearly this, kos, is the ordinary Hindi. Kuroh is a Persian form of the word, which is often found in Mahommedan authors and in early travellers. These latter (English) often write course. It is a notable circumstance that, according to Wrangell, the Yakuts of N. Siberia reckon distance by kiosses (a word which, considering the Russian way of writing Turkish and Persian words, must be identical with kos). With them this measure is "indicated by the time necessary to cook a piece of meat." Kioss is = to about 5 versts, or 1⅔ miles, in hilly or marshy country, but on plain ground to 7 versts, or 2⅓ miles.[[91]] The Yakuts are a Turk people, and their language is a Turki dialect. The suggestion arises whether the form kos may not have come with the Mongols into India, and modified the previous krośa? But this is met by the existence of the word kos in Pali, as mentioned above.

In ancient Indian measurement, or estimation, 4 krośas went to the yojana. Sir H. M. Elliot deduced from distances in the route of the Chinese pilgrim Fa-hian that the yojana of his age was as nearly as possible 7 miles. Cunningham makes it 7½ or 8, Fergusson 6; but taking Elliot's estimate as a mean, the ancient kos would be 1¾ miles.

The kos as laid down in the Āīn [ed. Jarrett, iii. 414] was of 5000 gaz [see [GUDGE]]. The official decision of the British Government has assigned the length of Akbar's Ilāhī gaz as 33 inches, and this would make Akbar's kos = 2 m. 4 f. 183⅓ yards. Actual measurement of road distances between 5 pair of Akbar's kos-minārs,[[92]] near Delhi, gave a mean of 2 m. 4 f. 158 yards.

In the greater part of the Bengal Presidency the estimated kos is about 2 miles, but it is much less as you approach the N.W. In the upper part of the Doab, it is, with fair accuracy, 1¼ miles. In Bundelkhand again it is nearly 3 m. (Carnegy), or, according to Beames, even 4 m. [In Madras it is 2¼ m., and in Mysore the Sultānī kos is about 4 m.] Reference may be made on this subject to Mr. Thomas's ed. of Prinsep's Essays, ii. 129; and to Mr. Beames's ed. of Elliot's Glossary ("The Races of the N.-W. Provinces," ii. 194). The latter editor remarks that in several parts of the country there are two kinds of kos, a pakkā and a kachchā kos, a double system which pervades all the weights and measures of India; and which has prevailed also in many other parts of the world [see [PUCKA]].

c. 500.—"A gavyūtih (or league—see [GOW]) is two krosas."—Amarakosha, ii. 2, 18.

c. 600.—"The descendant of Kukulstha (i.e. Rāma) having gone half a krośa...."—Raghuvamsā, xiii. 79.

c. 1340.—"As for the mile it is called among the Indians al-Kurūh."—Ibn Batuta, iii. 95.

" "The Sultan gave orders to assign me a certain number of villages.... They were at a distance of 16 Kurūhs from Dihli."—Ibn Batuta, 388.

c. 1470.—"The Sultan sent ten viziers to encounter him at a distance of ten Kors (a kor is equal to 10 versts)...."—Ath. Nikitin, 26, in India in the XVth Cent.

" "From Chivil to Jooneer it is 20 Kors; from Jooneer to Beder 40; from Beder to Kulongher, 9 Kors; from Beder to Koluberg, 9."—Ibid. p. 12.