NA TURE 



[September 2, 1922 



other coin, so thai the adoption of the rupee tola as a 



unit was more difficult. 



The following table, shewing the number of different 



seers reported to the Weights and Measures Com- 

 11 mi 5-14 in each province, will give perhaps 

 1 idea of the complexity and confusion of 



Indian weights than anything else : 



Weights smaller than the tola are used mainly by 

 jewellers and physicians, and the most fundamental 

 unit for these throughout India would appear to have 

 been originally the red and black seed of the Ih • 



1 ius, termed in Northern India the gunchi, and 

 assumed to weigh one ratti. Other seeds and grains 

 were also used, such as the poppy seed, the seed 

 of the Ccssalpinia sepiaria and grains of juar (the 

 greater millet), vice, wheat, and barley. The tola 

 used in this table frequently differs from that of 180 

 grains, but is now usually connected therewith by 

 being deemed equal to a definite number of rattis 

 more (or less) than the standard tola. A very usual 

 table in Northern India is — 8 khaskhas (poppy seeds) 

 = onechawal (grain of unhusked riee) ; 2 chawal=one 

 jau (barleycorn); 4 jau = one ratti; 8 rattis = one 

 masha , and 12 mashas = one tola. In Bengal, 

 Behar, and Assam the dhan (grain of husked rice) 

 takes the place of the jau. In Bombav and the 

 Central Provinces 2 rattis make a vol, wdiich is held 

 to be represented by the seed of the Ctssalpinia 

 sepiaria, while in part of the Chanda district ,1 grain 

 ot wheal serves this purpose. Throughout Behar, 

 Bengal, \ssam, and the greater part of the Central 

 Provinces the jewellers' tola is usually 1S0 grains. 

 In Northern India it is usually greater by from one 

 to twelve rattis, the most usual values being two, 

 three, or four rattis in excess. Occasionally, however, 

 the gold tola is less than 180 grains. In Bombay it 

 varies from 172 to 192 grains. In Madras jewellers' 

 weights seem to vary almost from district to district, 

 and the complications are innumerable. The seed of 

 the Abfus precatorius, held to represent the weight 

 gundumani or guruginja, is a frequent unit, but 

 various obsolete coins (e.g. the fanam and the pagoda) 

 and their fractions are in use, and the relations of 

 these weights to the iSo-grain tola usually but little 

 known. As an example of the result of these multi- 

 farious measures it may be mentioned that silver is 

 occasionally weighed in Madras by a table which is 

 connected with the standard tola by the fact that 

 3399 of the rattis thereof are equal to 64 tolas 1 As a 

 matter of fact, throughout India current silver coins 

 are largelv used as weights, though the larger jewellers 

 frequently have well-made sets of weights representing 

 the locally current table. 



There remains Burma. The weights of this province 

 though showing some connexion with those of 

 Madras, are fundamentally different. The universally 

 current unit is the peiktha, usually known to Euro- 



13 its Madras name of viss, which has been fixed 



1 rnment as 140 tolas (3-60 lbs. avoirdupois), 



though as a matter of fact this " fixation " has had 



NO. 2757, VOL. I IO] 



lint little effect outside a few of the municipalities. 

 It varies slightly, having apparently originally been 

 really about T42; tolas, and was formerly held to be 

 equivalent to 365 lbs. avoirdupois (or 141 J; tolas), 

 the peiktha is divided into 100 kyat or gvat, known to 

 Europeans as tikal. This, it may be mentioned, is, so 

 far as 1 know, the only truly decimal subdivision 

 current anywhere in the Indian Empire. 

 For weights below the tikal the 

 original table appears to have been 2 

 small ywes = one large ywe ; 2 large 

 ywes = one pe ; 2 pes = one mu ; 

 5 pes =one mat ; 2 mats or 5 mus =one 

 nga-mu (" five-mu ") ; 2 nga-mti =one 

 tikal. Various seeds are used to repre- 

 sent some of these weights ; thus, that 

 of the Abuts precatorius is held to be 

 equal to the small, and that of the 

 Adenanthera pavonina to the large ywe. 

 while the seed of the Garcinia p 

 lata is occasionally deemed equal to 

 8 large ywes. This table w-as com- 

 plicated by tin- fact that, owing to intercourse 

 with India, the tikal was divided also into 16 parts, 

 equally known as pe, and then four of these went to 

 the unit. Further complications were introduced by 

 the application of the same series of subdivisions to 

 the tola of 180 grains, as fundamental unit, in place of 

 the tikal, while in the Ruby Mines district the ratti 

 is thus subdivided. The result, needless to say, is 

 extreme confusion. 



British (avoirdupois) weights are a good deal used 

 in Bombay city and some of the big towns of Bombay, 

 Berar, and the west of the Central Provinces, and in 

 a considerable number of places in Madras, but 

 practically only in large places and by the larger 

 establishments. Not infrequently the nearness of 

 the pound weight (39; tolas) to the half of the 80 

 or the whole of the 40 tola seer leads to mistakes, or 

 even to deliberate fraud. Any knowdedge of the metric 

 system is confined practically to the neighbourhood of 

 Pondicherry. 



Only the more important variations have been dis- 

 cussed ; to give anything like a complete list would 

 be far beyond the limits of space admissible. The 

 Weights and Measures Committee of 1913-14 pre- 

 pared a complete list showing for each district in 

 India and Burma all weights and measures reported 

 to them as in use. It forms a volume of some 500 

 pages. Enough has, however, been said to show the 

 extreme confusion in weights that exists in many 

 parts of India. 



Apart from the use of seeds to represent weights 

 there are few items of special interest. In Upper 

 Burma before the annexation, w-eights based on the 

 system sanctioned by the King were always made in 

 the form of the hentha (known in India as the Brahmini 

 duck). Although in many parts of India well or 

 fairly well made metal weights are in use, often the 

 actual weights consist of lumps of metal or stone, 

 while smaller weights are made out of buttons, etc. 

 Even where cast - iron weights are in use it wall 

 frequently happen that there is no indication as to the 

 precise seer, etc., which is deemed to be represented. 

 Thus two or more iron seers of identical appearance 

 but different weights may be found in use in the same 

 town, anil sometimes even in the same shop. 



In a few places, and these by no means the more 

 advam ed, locally made steelyards are used; thus in 

 Cuttack the bisa is a steelyard with movable fulcrum 

 used to weigh articles up to 4 or 5 pounds. Similar 

 steelyards, called tul or tulachoni, are in use in several 

 districts in the Brahmaputra valley. In Burma, 

 steelyards with fixed fulcrum (known as le-dan or 

 taing-tzu) are regularly used by the Chinese, but 



