328 



NA TURE 



[September 2, 1922 



cubits, which, taking the cubit at iS in., is equal to 

 three paces of 33 in. each. This unit length has many 

 names: in the United Provinces it is termed a laita 

 or gatha, and the standard (so far as there was one) 

 was three Akbari gaz (of 33 A in. each). The standard 

 most often recognised by Government, however, is 

 of 99 in., so that 20 equal a chain of 55 yards. In the 

 Panjab, the Frontier Province, and Sind the corre- 

 sponding unit is the karam, the most important one 

 being 6b in. in length. In Behar and Orissa it is known 

 as the bans, lagga, padika, or nal, and usually varies 

 between 6 ft. and 12 ft. In Bengal it is a dhait, 

 danda, nal, or hatha. In Assam a nal, tar, or bes. 

 In Bombay proper a kat/11, and in Sincl a kano : 111 

 Madras a nolo (Ganjam) or badda (Xellore), and in 

 Burma a ta ( =seven cubits or ioi ft.). The actual 

 area arrived at by this method is, however, most 

 variable, and though the unit length seems to have 

 originally been about three paces it may, as a matter 

 of fact, be apparently anything from one to five. 

 The more valuable the land and the more powerful 

 the landowner the smaller is the laggi. A not in- 

 frequent method of raising rents was to shorten the 

 length of the laggi, the " rent per bigah " remaining 

 nominally the same for the smaller resultant bigah. 

 Many riots have been caused by differences of opinion 

 between landlord and tenant as to the correct length 

 of the laggi. The square laggi has many names : in 

 the United Provinces it is usually a biswansi, in the 

 Panjab a sirsahi, in Behar a dhur, in Bombay a kalhi, 

 Assam a rekh, Burma a palagwet, and so on. Though 

 it is almost always the four-hundredth part of the 

 bigah (or corresponding unit), the intermediate sub- 

 divisions vary. The most general intervening unit 

 is one consisting of 20 square laggis, known most 

 widely as a biswa or hatha (" cotta "). But in Orissa 

 16 of the smallest units make a guntha, and 25 gunthas 

 go to the man (which corresponds to the bigah else- 

 where). In the Panjab, where the square karam is 

 known as the sirsahi, 9 of them go to the maila, 20 

 marlas equal one hand!, and .[ kandls one bigah. 

 Here two bigahs make a ghumaon, which has been 

 standardised as one acre. This table holds over the 

 western Panjab, Sind, and the Frontier Province. 

 In Burma there are two large units — the pegadi for 

 " public " pe) containing 625 square ta (or palagivet), 

 and the min-pe of 35 ta l\ taung square or 1250 yV's 

 palagwet, treated lor practical purposes as exactly 

 equal to two pegadi. 



In eastern Bengal the unit length is often used 

 somewhat differently, the unit area being sometimes 

 rectangular. Thus in Dacca and Maimansingh a 

 common unit is the kdni, a variable rectangle, but 

 most frequently one the sides of which are 12 and 10 

 nal. The pakhi, another frequently used unit, appears 

 to be practically only another name for the kdni. 



Though the system is so similar throughout the 

 country it has not resulted in any uniformity ; in 

 fact, the bigah and connected measures are almost as 

 indefinite as the older measures previously mentioned. 

 Thus in the United Provinces no less than 58 bigahs, 

 varying from ,\,th to one acre, are reported. In 

 Champaran district (Behar and Orissa) the laggi 

 varies from ro ft. iojin. to 17 ft. 5jin. In Dacca the 

 Settlement Officer had to prepare more than 100 con- 

 version tables to reduce the local measures of area to 

 the acre. In much of Madras the indigenous systems 

 appear to have had other origins ; thus in Madras 

 1 11 v the cawnie of 1-32 acres is still used — this is equal 

 ii 20 iiniiiai or " grounds," the manai having originally 

 been defined as the area sufficient for a small Indian 

 house. Elsewhere the gorru, a measure based on the 

 area a pair of bullocks can plough, is used ; it is about 

 I 1 1 1 acres. 



There are numerous other units of area in use in 



various parts of the country, and the variations of 

 those bearing the same name are almost innumerable, 

 but there would seem to be little purpose in giving 

 further details. 



When precision is necessary in dealing with areas 

 which are of such vital importance to rent law and 

 the land revenue, two methods have been adopted. 

 Either the bigah has been standardised over a certain 

 area or else the British acre (divided either into roods 

 and poles, or rhore usually into one-hundredths) 

 has been vised. The number of different " stan- 

 dardised " bigahs actually adopted in the Settlement 

 records is very great ; thus in the Gorakhpur district 

 of the United Provinces no less than nine were used. 

 In many parts of the country the acre and its hun- 

 dredth parts (generally termed " decimals," or in 

 Burma " dathama ") are becoming well known. In 

 the Panjab Canal colonies two new units have been 

 introduced — the killa of 220 ft. square and the nun abba 

 (square) of 1100 ft. square, equal to 25 killa, being 

 respectively equivalent to 10 and 250 acres. In 

 short, for all purposes where exactness is required 

 either the acre and its subdivisions or some stan- 

 dardised indigenous measure is now used. 



Measures of Capacity. — Contrary to what is some- 

 times alleged, measures of capacity for grain and 

 such like articles are very widely used throughout 

 India, the only tracts where they are practicallv non- 

 existent being the greater part of the United Pri- 

 vinces (excluding the extreme east and south-west), 

 most of Behar proper, and the eastern Panjab. It is 

 true that in much of the rest of India they are mainly 

 used in rural areas and the smaller towns and for 

 retail and local transactions, but even so their use is 

 widespread and certainly affects the great bulk of 

 the people. In Burma, and to a less extent in Madras, 

 they are of universal importance, forming the basis of 

 large transactions. For some reason, or possibly by 

 pure coincidence, their use is more widespread in the 

 rice- growing areas, though by no means excluded 

 from the rest of the countrv. 



The unit measure of the series in use is usually 

 defined as a measure containing a certain number of 

 the chief current local unit of weight of the pre- 

 dominant grain. Sometimes a definite weight of a 

 mixture of several (8 or 9) kinds of grain was used to 

 fix the size. A picturesque variant to this rule occurs 

 in the Khasia and Jaintia hills (the inhabitants of 

 which were head hunters), where the size of the 

 standard measure was fixed as being convenient to 

 hold a man's head. Measures are generally used 



heaped," rarely (though occasionally) " struck." 

 As there is no uniformity in the cross-section of 

 measures supposed to contain equal quantities this 

 increases the variations. The measures themselves 

 are made sometimes of wicker-work, at others of 

 wood or metal, and may be cylindrical, rectangular, 

 prismoidal, hemispherical, or more or less globular— 

 i.e. in the shape of a sphere with considerably less 

 than the upper hemisphere removed. The wicker 

 measures especially are liable to increase in size with 

 age. Save in Burma, Madras, and a few of the larger 

 municipalities in the Central Provinces and Berar, no 

 attempt has ever been made to standardise them, 

 and there has never been anything corresponding to 

 the unifying influence of the railway seer to assimilate 

 the measures of different places. 



The chief measure of a place is generally one con- 

 taining from one to five local seers of some grain, 

 and there are various multiples and submultiples of 

 this, the larger ones being merely measures of account. 

 It has already been seen how numerous are the local 

 units of weight — the reasons just given make those 

 of capacity even more variable. The units themselves, 

 and the names and mutual relations of their multiples 



NO. 2757, VOL. IIO] 



