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VI. 



On Indian Weights and Meafures. 



BY 



H. T. COLEBROOKE, Efq. 



COMMENTATORS reconcile the contradictions 

 of ancient authors, on the fubjecl: of weights and 

 meafures, by a reference to different ftandards. To 

 understand their explanations, I have been led to fome 

 enquiries, the refult of which I (hall ftate concifely, 

 to alleviate the labour of others who may feek infor- 

 mation on the fame fubjecl: s omitting, however, fuch 

 meafures as are of very limited ufe. 



Mod of the authorities which I mall quote have not 

 been confulted by myfelf, but are aliumed from the 

 citations in a work of Go'pa'la Bhatta', on Numbers 

 and Quantities) which is intitled Sanc'hyaparhriina. 



Menu, Ya'jnyawaleya, and Na'reda, trace all 

 weights from the leaft vifible quantity, which they con- 

 cur in naming trajarenu> and defcribing as the very 

 fmali mote which may be difcerned in a fun-beam 

 paffing through " a lattice." Writers on medicine 

 proceed a flep further, and affirm, that a trajarenu 

 contains thirty paramanu, or atoms : they defcribe the 

 trajarenu in words of the fame import with the defini- 

 tions given by Menu, and they furnifh another name 

 for it, vans}. According to them, eighty-fix vansis 

 make one marichi> or fenfible portion of light. 



The 



