1864.] 



On Ancient Indian Weights. 



261 



higher denomination of the silver Satamdna 29 is also derived from the 

 vegetable kingdom, hut unlike the lower divisions, which are defined 

 by single grains, this weight is produced by one hundred seeds of the 

 Alocasia Indica. When the precise plant, which furnished the Mana 

 seed for the early standard, is satisfactorily determined, the result 

 will doubtless prove the near equivalent of 100 Manas to 320 Satis — 

 which, it will be seen, comprised the identical amount required for the 

 weight of the gold Nishha^ whose minor constituents are, however, 

 formed upon a different gradational scale, though equally emanating 

 from the conventional Sati unit. I need not follow the nomenclature 

 of the larger divisions of weights in the joint tables, but before closing 

 the inquiry I would revert for a moment to the leading point I desire 

 to establish, that the Indians were not indebted to the Aryans for 

 their system of weights ; the latter, in fact, when tried by the test of 

 the hymns of the " Big Veda," would seem to have been very ill versed 

 in the Flora Indica, an extensive knowledge of which was clearly 

 necessary for, and is evidenced in, the formation of the scale of propor- 

 tions. Indeed, although the Vedic Aryans often invoked their gods 

 to aid their agriculture, the result so little availed them that their 

 efforts at cultivation were apparently confined to barley, in the raising 

 of which even they do not seem to have been always successful. 31 



The next question to be examined is the distribution of the arith- 

 metical numbers whereby the process of multiplication was conducted. 

 Mr. Poole has laid it down as a law for Mesopotamian metrology that, 

 " all the older systems are divisible by either 6,000 or 3,600. The 

 6,000th or 3,600th part of the talent is a divisor of all higher weights 

 and coins, ^nd a multiple of all lower weights and coins, except 

 its frds." 32 



flati of Mann's time, would range at 1.71875 grains or allowing 56 grains for 

 the standard, the retnrn of the rati weight wonld be 56-4-32=1.75 ; an amount I 

 am inclined to adopt upon other grounds. We must not be misled by the more 

 modern weight the rati eventually attained, as it rose, in account, with the 

 rise of rnashas and tolas, 



29. -^ff ffT«f, Wilson makes it, ^?T 100, ^j*f measure, See, however, B. 

 W*T S. i?T«T«¥f "Arum Indicum." Carey, Hort. Ben. pp. 56. 65. Asiatic Ees. x. 

 19. " Man KacMp Dr. Thomson has sent me a seed of the wild Alocasia fallax, 

 from Khasia, which itself weighs 2J grains. 



30. Nishka occurs in second Ashtaka of the Eig Yeda. Wilson, ii. p. 17. 



31. Wilson's " Eig Yeda," i. pp. xli., lvii., and iii, p. xi. 



32. Mr. Poole has favoured me with the subjoined revised list of ancient metric 

 systems : — 



