September 2, 1922] 



NA TURE 



The Weights and Measures of India. 



By C. A. Silbf.rrad, President Indian Weights and Measures Committee. 



A COMMITTEE was appointed by the Government 

 ■^*- of India in the autumn of 1913 "to inquire into 

 the whole question of the feasibility of securing the 

 use of uniform weights and measures in India." It 

 submitted its report 1 in July 1914, but further con- 

 sideration of the matter was delayed by the war and 

 subsequent political developments in India, and it 

 was only in April 1922 that, after consultation with 

 Local Governments, the final resolution on the report 

 was issued. This in brief approved the recommenda- 

 tions of the report and left it to Local Governments 

 to give effect to them so far as and in what way each 

 thought advisable. 



Like its inhabitants, the weights and measures of 

 India are extremely diversified ; but, like them, 

 they are susceptible of a certain amount of classifica- 

 tion. Doubtless originally the svstems which came 

 into use at the different centres were entirely indepen- 

 dent, but with the centralisation of administration, 

 the unification of the coinage, and the spread of rail- 

 ways a certain degree of systematisation has arisen, 

 and the weight of the tola has been assimilated to 

 that of the rupee (180 grains), and is recognised 

 practically everywhere as a fundamental unit, the 

 relation of which to almost all weights in actual use 

 is known. 



The system of weights most widely known is that 

 in force on the railways. This consists of the seer of 

 80 tolas (of 180 grains each) and the maund of 40 

 seers, with the chatak of 5 tolas. This system is used 

 almost to the exclusion of any other in the west of the 

 United Provinces, the Panjab, except a tract in the 

 centre and the districts bordering on the North-west 

 Frontier Province, the Hazara district of the latter, 

 Sind, Baluchistan, the north of the Bombay Deccan, 

 and the greater part of the Central Provinces. In the 

 Central Panjab, the southern portions of the United 

 Provinces, Chota Nagpur, and practically all Bengal 

 and Assam this system is in use in combination with 

 various other seers — usually known as kachcliha (i.e. 

 imperfect) seers, consisting of a variable but always 

 smaller number of tolas — usually 40 to 60. In 

 Rohilkhand (United Provinces) and the western 

 Panjab with the trans-Indus portion of the Frontier 

 Province the most usual system is one in which the 

 seer contains about 100 tolas, while in Gujarat that 

 most commonlv used contains 40 tolas. 



In the eastern parts of the United Provinces and 

 the greater part of Behar proper, with adjoining 

 portions of Chota Nagpur, the popular systems are 

 extraordinarily variable. They are based on some 

 number of gandas (sets of four) of the local pice 

 (copper coins). These are of two kinds — Gorakhpuri 

 and Lohiya. The Gorakhpuri pice were coined at 

 Butwal in Nepal, and like Lohiya pice consist of shape- 

 less dumps of copper, the weight of which was variable 

 when they were new, and has become much more so 

 with use. A number of gandas of such pice was taken 

 to represent the seer of the place concerned. That 

 number would naturally represent a somewhat 

 different weight when other pice were used, so some 

 would be added or subtracted, and that new number 

 would start a new seer. Matters were further com- 

 plicated by the adoption of the rupee in some places 

 as unit instead of the local pice, the same numbers 

 being used. The numbers supposed to be equivalent 

 to a definite weight vary considerably, a fair average 

 is 100 Lohiya pice =92 Gorakhpuri pice =80 tolas. 

 In the Gorakhpur district seers of 8, 8£, n, 12, 13, 



1 Report of the Weights and Measures Committee, published by the 

 lent of India. Government Central Press, Simla. Rs. 2. 



NO. 2/57, VOL I io] 



'<!•■ t3i ' I. 21, 22, 24f, 25, 27, 27J. 28, 32, 36, and 

 40 gandas of such pice are reported, while with other 

 seers the total number reported as in use in various 

 parts of the district amounts to 42, not to mention 

 several panseris (literally five seers) weights to which 

 there is no corresponding seer in use. The Lohiya 

 pice are fully as variable; 121 separate gandas when 

 weighed were found to give 60 different weights 

 varying from 531 to 675 grains. The result is extra- 

 ordinary confusion. 



The kachcliha seer of 32 to 36 tolas used in the central 

 Panjab has a somewhat similar origin, this seer being 

 supposed to be the weight of 36 mansuri pice, a coin 

 coined in the Maler-Kotla state and of varying weight, 

 the 36 averaging 33J tolas. Similarly in the north- 

 west Frontier Province the Peshawari seer was 

 supposed to be the weight of 102 Doadzashahi or 

 Nanakshahi rupees, each of which was slightlv heavier 

 than the present rupee. 



Lastly, there are the tracts where a small seer of 

 15 to 28 tolas is used to the more or less complete 

 exclusion of any other seers. Thus in Bombay city 

 the ordinarily used seer is of 28 tolas, and small seers 

 of something near this weight are current throughout 

 the southern Bombay Deccan, the Konkan, and west 

 Berar. 



Throughout these parts of India the table of weights 

 is very similar. The chatak is always one-sixteenth 

 of the seer ; it is, however, known by other names — 

 e.g. it is a kanwa in parts of Behar and Orissa, a 

 sliarak in the western Panjab, and an anna in Sind ; 

 while the sixteenth part of the central Panjab 

 kachcliha seer is termed a sirsai. In some tracts the 

 chatak is divided into four parts ; these are termed 

 kachha in Bengal and duko in Sind. 



The maund, though usually containing 40 seers, does 

 not do so by any means always, the variations in this 

 respect being by commodities as well as bv localities. 

 Thus in Cawnpore a dozen different maunds, contain- 

 ing from 41 to 63 seers (of 80 tolas), are in use for 

 various kinds of merchandise, and in Bombav city 

 seven maunds and 12 khandis. This latter is a weight 

 supposed normally to contain 20 maunds, those in 

 use in Bombay vary from n to 28 Bombav maunds 

 (of 40 seers each of 28 tolas). 



So far as they fall into this classification the Madras 

 we"ights come under this head, as the standard seer 

 for Madras contains 24 tolas and the larger seers are 

 but little used, though the 80 - tola seer is known 

 through its use on the railways and by Government. 

 The standard table is 3 tolas =one palam ; 8 palams = 

 one seer; 5 seers = one viss ; 8 viss=one maund. 

 But the palam is 6 tolas in Madras, varies from 

 3g to 15 in Malabar, and is 4th pound avoirdupois 

 in Tinnevelly. The viss too may sometimes be 6 

 seers, and maunds and khandis (usually 20 maunds) 

 vary as -greatly here as elsewhere. Certain places 

 have other peculiar weights — e.g. the thukku, varying 

 from 100 to 250 tolas, and the tulani from 800 to 

 1350. An interesting survival is the use of the Dutch 

 pound (termed rathal and deemed equivalent to 42J- 

 tolas) in Cochin. Similarly the British pound has 

 given rise to a rathal of 3S5 tolas, and in the parts of 

 Arcot near Pondicherry the half-kilo to one of 42-9 

 tolas. The Madras weights are the most confused 

 and complicated of all India, this being due possibly 

 to the greater differences between the peoples com- 

 posing its population, and to the fact that much of the 

 Presidency never formed part of the Mughal Empire, 

 and that consequently the basis of many of the 

 weights was not the rupee but the pagoda or some 



