History of measurement systems in India

The history of measurement systems in India begins in early Indus Valley civilisation with the earliest surviving samples dated to the 5th millennium BCE. Since early times the adoption of standard weights and measures has reflected in the country's architectural, folk, and metallurgical artifacts. A complex system of weights and measures was adopted by the Maurya empire (322–185 BCE), which also formulated regulations for the usage of this system. Later, the Mughal empire (1526–1857) used standard measures to determine land holdings and collect land tax as a part of Mughal land reforms. The formal metrication in India is dated to 1 October 1958 when the Indian Government adopted the International System of Units (SI).

Quotes

• Measures of distance too were amended, the kos or Indian twomiles being now defined as consisting of so many yards of twice twenty-four thumb-breadths, because the creed (Kalmah) contains twenty-four letters. The kos thus fixed was 2¾ miles, and if the letter-carriers did not travel this distance in 33 minutes they were to be flogged. All the names of weights and measures were altered. But the most wonderful of his improvements was his new method of calculating time. As is well known, the Hindus counted time in cycles of 60 years, each year having a separate name, a system which makes their chronology somewhat difficult to unravel. Tipu founded a new calendar on this basis, giving however fantastic names to the years, and equally strange ones to the lunar months. The year, according to his arrangement, only contained 354 days, and each month was called by some name in alphabetical order. From the year 1784, all his letters were dated according to the day of one or other of the months in this new nomenclature.
  • Lewin B Bowring in his Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan quoted from Sandeep Balakrishna. 2013. Tipu Sultan : The Tyrant of Mysore. Chennai: Rare Publications.

• Kalibangan had street widths standardized in an arithmetic progression: 1.8 m, 3.6 m, 5.4 m and 7.2 m; we find traces of such a system at Kaushambi as well,23 where a road 2.44 m wide is broadened to the exact double of 4.88 m; more significantly, the Arthashāstra24 prescribes streets in widths of two, four or eight dandas, with the danda being a unit of length generally taken to be about six feet or 1.8 m.
  • in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

• The Indus weight system is identical to that used in the first kingdoms of the Gangetic plains . . . and is still in use today in traditional markets throughout Pakistan and India.
  • Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark as quoted by Danino. Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization°, p. 98. in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

• 108 angulas make a dhanus, a measure [used] for roads and city-walls . . .
  • Arthashastra 2.20.19. See Kautilya Arthasastra, tr. R.P. Kangle, part II, p. 139. in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

• Varāhamihira .... in his Brihat Samhitā.... states that the height of a tall man is 108 angulas, that of a medium man ninety-six angulas, and that of a short man eighty-four angulas (the same heights apply to statues of various deities); using our Harappan angula of 1.76 cm, we get 1.90, 1.69 and 1.48 m respectively, quite consistent with ‘tall’, ‘medium’ and ‘short’.
  • Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.