1864.] 



On Ancient Indian Weights. 



'251 



On Ancient Indian Weights, — -By E. Thomas, l£$q. 



[The subjoined article was sketched, with a view to the limited 

 illustration of the subject announced in its title, for insertion in the 

 Numismatic Chronicle : but so large a proportion of its contents have 

 proved in the progress of the enquiry to relate to questions beyond 

 the legitimate scope of that Journal, while they would seem well 

 adapted for the pages of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 

 that I have revised and added to the original paper, in the design of 

 its simultaneous publication in England and in India. I am the 

 more anxious that it should appear in the latter country, as there alone 

 can its higher aims be suitably discussed ; thence also must we seek 

 a due definition of the indigenous plants upon whose products these 

 weights are based, and a determination, by actual comparison of grow- 

 ing seeds, of the initiatory scheme of Indian Metrology. From that 

 continent must come the further ethnological and philological evi- 

 dence, which is to determine many of the questions I have ventured to 

 raise. "Wherever the final decision may be pronounced, it is clear the 

 witnesses are still mainly in the land whose past history is under 

 investigation. — Edward Thomas] . 



The attention of archaeologists has recently been attracted to the 

 weights and measures of ancient nations, by the elaborate work of M. 

 Queipo, 1 and the less voluminous, but more directly interesting article 

 of Mr. R. S. Poole, on the Babylonian and other early metrologies. 2 

 At the present day, when ethnological inquiries engross such an un- 

 precedented share of public notice, any parallel study that may con- 

 tribute by material and tangible evidence to check erroneous, or 

 suitably aid and uphold sound theories, should be freely welcomed, 

 however much its details may threaten to prove tedious, or the locality 

 whence its data are drawn may be removed beyond the more favoured 

 circles of research. 



The system of Indian weights, in its local development, though 

 necessarily possessing a minor claim upon the consideration of the 

 European world, may well maintain a leading position in the general 



1. "Essai surles Systemes Metriques et Monetaires des Anciens Peuples " 

 par Don Y. Queipo, 3 vols. 8vo., Paris, 1859. See also a review of the same 

 Journal des Savants, 1861, p. 229. * 



2. Article "Weights," Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible/ 5 London 1863, 



