Those who wish to study the elaborate systems of later times employed in India can consult the works of Colebrooke and Thomas already referred to.
The legislators Manu, Yájnavalkya, and Nárada trace all weights from the least visible quantity which they concur in naming trasareṇu and describing as the very small mote, "which may be discovered in a sunbeam passing through a lattice." Writers on medicine proceed a step further, and affirm that a trasareṇu contains 30 paramáṇu or atoms. The legislators above-named proceed from the trasareṇu as follows:
8 trasareṇus = 1 likshá, or minute poppy-seed.
3 likshás = 1 raja-sarshapa, or black mustard-seed.
3 raja-sarshapas = 1 gaura-sarshapa, or white mustard-seed.
6 gaura-sarshapas = 1 yava, or middle-sized barley-corn.
3 yavas = 1 kṛishnala, or seed of the gunjá.
But as we want to learn what was the actual usage of the Hindus, instead of dealing with the mere theoretic statements of late authors, I shall at once quote in full the tables given in the Lilavati of Brahmegupta, who wrote his Algebra and Arithmetic about 600 A.D.[1]
Money (by tale). Twice ten cowries[2] are a cácíní; four of these are a pána, sixteen of which must here be considered as a dramma, and in like manner a nishká as consisting of sixteen of these.
Weight. A gunjá (or seed of Abrus), is reckoned equal to two barley-corns (yavas). A valla is two gunjas and eight of these are a dharana, two of which make a yadyanaca. In like manner one dhataca is composed of fourteen vallas.
Half ten gunjas are called a masha by such as are conversant with the use of the balance; a karsha contains sixteen of what
- ↑ Algebra with Arithmetic and Mensuration translated from the Sanskrit of Brahmegupta and Bhascara by H. T. Colebrooke (London, 1817).
- ↑ Down almost to the present day a system of currency, similar to that shown in the Lilavati prevailed in Assam. "Gold continues to pass current in small uncoined round balls, usually weighing one Tola," there was a silver coinage also, and cowries passed as money. W. Robinson, Descriptive Account of Assam, pp. 249 and 267 (London, 1841).
