BIGHA, Bhiga, or Beegha, a land measure varying in extent in different parts of India. The standard bigha of the Revenue Surveys of the North-West Provinces is equal to 3025 square yards, or 5-Sths of an acre. In Bengal, the bigha, contained only 1600 square yards, or little less than one-third of an acre. In Benares, it was, at the time of the settlement, determined at 3136 square yards. In other parganas it was 2025 to 3600, or to 3925 square yards. A kacha (immature, crude, small) bigha is in some places a third, in others only a fourth, of a full or standard bigha. Akbar's bigha of 3600 square gaz=2G00 square yards = or somewhat more than half an acre on the above estimation.
In the N.W. Provinces of India it is nearly five eighths of an acre. In the Lower Provinces it is 120 feet square, or 4800 superficial feet, nearly one-third of an English acre. Tod says that in Rajputana 120 are = 40 acres. Sir H. Elliot
specifies the following as some of the variations found in the Upper Provinces for 100 acres, viz. :— nisha. Biswa. Farrakhabad , 175 12 0 East and South Gorakhpur, . 192 19 7 Albthabad and part of Azimghur, 177 5 6 Part of Azimghur and Gazipur, 154 6 8 ...... . . 187 19 15 In the Upper Doab (Kachhu), . 582 3 0 In Cuttack, the bigha is now considered to be an English acre. The Mahratta bigha is called twenty pand, or 400 square kathi or rods, each five cubits and five handbreadths; as the rod varies so does the bigha ; under the Adal Shahi dynasty it was equal to 4683 square yards, or only 457 square yards less than an English acre. The Gujerat bigha contains only 284 square yards.— Wilson's Glossary, p. 85 ; Elliot, Supplement ; Tod's Rajasthan, i. p. 553 ; Carnegy.