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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XII. 



ment to measure time. It is a copper dish, holding about a 

 pint, with a very small hole at the bottom. The dish they set 

 a swimming in an earthen pot of water, which leaks in at 

 the bottom till the dish sinks, and that makes one peya, 

 hour, or part ; it is then set empty again in the water by a 

 man who is kept on purpose to watch it." 



Commenting on this passage, Mr. White, in an interesting 

 Paper on " Sinhalese Measures of Time," to which I owe 

 many interesting particulars hereafter quoted, observes : 

 " The Kandyan kings, indeed those 6 black-bearded kings with 

 wolfish eyes,' have glided away into the shadowy past, 

 but the water clock called pe-tetiya in Sinhalese, the Mepsydra 

 of the Greeks, may still be seen in dewalas and such 

 places, " especially in the houses of some ancient families. 



The Sinhalese, as a rule, makes nature his clock, and is 

 a dial to himself as he walks abroad. He at least does not 



Wisely tell what hour o' the day 

 The clock does strike by algebra.* 



He divides his day into 60 peyas of about 20 minutes each, 

 that is, 30 peyas of light and 30 peyas of darkness. 



As a rule when asked the time he would say so many 

 peyas after sunrise, sunturn, or nightfall, as the case may be. 



Another way of measuring time is by the piyara, or foot, 

 of a man's shadow, and the equivalent of the piyara at various 

 times of the day and year is given in the published almanacs. 



The following particulars of the piyara measurement are 

 taken from the Panchdnga : — 



The man who measures the piyara by his own foot should have six 

 piyaras to the length of his shadow. If otherwise, he should measure 

 his height with a stick, which should be divided into six parts, and 

 one-sixth part would go to a piyara, and then his shadow should be 

 measured by the piyara so obtained. The following table shows the 

 reckoning of piyara, angal, vinadi, and peyas in the morning from 10 

 vinadi till pahalospeya, or 15 peyas (midday), and again from 10 

 vinadi from sunturn till 10 vinadi before sunset : — 



* Orientalist, vol. III., parts 3 and 4, pp. 75, 76. [Of course from 

 Hudibras. " — B., Hon. Sec,] 



