Biswa, from Bis, HIND., twenty, is the twentieth part of a bigha, and besides beim* a measure of land, is also used to signify the extent of proprietary right in an estate. Each estate or village is considered an integer of the bigha, which is divided into imaginary biswa and biswansi, to show the right of any particular party. Thus the holder of 5 biswa is a bolder to the extent of one-fourth of the entire village, precisely in the same way as the As was used amongst the Romans. Thus hacres ex summuncia, heir to one twenty-fourth ; hams ex dodrante, heir to three-fourths ; hzeres ex asse, sole pro prietor. In the same manner, bes, bessis was used to express a biswa ; berar,—socius ex besse ; and thus in sound and meaning, for of course there is no real connection, there is a close resemblance between the words. Bes, when it was thus applied as a subdivision of the As, was the eighth part of a jugerum or acre ; not, as is usually applied, two-thirds.
Cos, lincn. is the itinerary measure of India. The Ayin-i-Akbari lays down distinctly that the cos consists of 100 cords (tunab), each cord of 50 guz ; also of 400 poles (ban),.. each of 121 guz : either of which will give to the cos the length of 5000 guz. The length of the cos, as ascertained from the average distances of the old. cos minar or cos pillars, is = 2 .miles 4 furlongs 158 yards. In different parts of India, however, these vary, and in-India the cos varies from about 1 mile to 8-miles.
The Gujerati cos is the greatest distance at which the ordinary lowing of a COW can be heard, which is determined to be 50 jureeb; or 15,000 gm. This cos resembles the Chinese i.e.
the distance which can be attained by a man's voice, exerted on a plain surface, and in calm weather. Another, in Bengal, is estimated by plucking a green leaf, and walking with it till it dry. Another is measured by a hundred steps, made by a woman carrying a jar of water on her head and a child in her arms. All these are very indefinite standards.
Heel or mile, league. — The same may be ieniarked of the oriental nieel, as well the European mile and league. The two former evidently derive their name from the Roman inilliare, and the difference of the value proves that the mere name was borrowed without refer ence to its etymological ain-nification. According to the Kamus, the orienAal ineel is a lax and vague measure, but it has been considered by Dr. Lee to be to the English one as 139 to 112. The league also, from the German Luffen, to see, and signifying the distance that cant'be readily seen by the eye on a plain surface, is as indefinite as a Gujerat gao and a Bengal or Dhuppea cos. Cos is an Indian word ; the equivalent in Persian is kuroh. the same as the Sanskrit word krosa, of which four go to the yojan, about the precise valne of which different opinions are held,-4 English miles according to Bopp ; 4f, 5, and 9 miles according to Professor Wilson ; but, ac cording to the distances in Fa Ilian's route, the yojan in his time was equal to 7 English rniles, and this agrees much better with what we find the yojan to be when we resolve it into its component parts,— 8 barley-corns = 1 finger.
24 „ 1 dund.
1000 „ = 1 lama.
• 4 „ = 1 yojan. And, estimating. the finger - breadth at eight barley-corns, this makes the yojan equal to 6 miles 106 yards and 2 feet.
Dry and Liquid Mum-ft—India does not, properly speaking, possess dry or liquid measures. ' IVhen these are employed, they depend upon, and in fact represent, the seer or man weight, and the value of a vessel of capacity rests solely on the weight contained in it. The mode in which thia is effected for the dry measures of the south and west of India, is by taking an equal mixture of the principal grains, and forming a vessel to hold a given weight thereof, so as to obtain an average measure; sometimes salt is included amongst tho ingredients. The inaund and seer measures of capacity are supposed to represent the equivalents of a maund and seer weight, although it hi evident, since no two articles have exactly the same proportionate bulk, that no two measures need correspond. In the absence of suitable standards of capacity, almost every article is sold by weight, even ghi, oil, and milk. Grain is sold either by weight or measure, but with an understood proportion between them ; thus in Madras the measure for paddy is exactly the bulk of a viss weight. There arc, however, a few measures of a well-wscertained value, which appear to have been arranged in something like order around the cubic cubit. An old writer on arithmetic, Bhaskaracharya, states explicitly that a measure called karika was the cubic cubit, or ghunulnistu. Above this was the cube of a double cubit, and ten times the half of this is the garce, a measure well known through all Southern India, and formerly universal ; so that the garce is 40 karika. The half of the karika is the parah. One-tenth part of the cubic cubit is the mercal. In Western India there is the candy of 10 cubic cubits. The cube of one fourth of a cubic cubit is the pyli. In Southern India there is the tilmi of four hundredths of the garce, and the Fuldacii or one-fiftli of the cubic cubit; while in the Telugu districts there is the puti of two cubic cubits, and another tinni one-tenth of one cubit. Turning northwards to Ganjam we find the burnum of two cubic cubitx, and the nawty of one-tenth of a cubic cubit, and the tan of one-fortieth of the same measure.