The sensitive Hindu weighing system,

magine taking into weight account, the floating specks/motes one sees in a ray of sunlight through a wire mesh?My weekend post of Beautiful India this week is about amazing system of weighing that has that speck/mote counted into its weighing system. A system which has existed in this subcontinent for thousands of year. Rishi Manu(ऋषि मनु), in his ‘Manu smriti’( मनु स्मृति ) describes: 
The very small mote which may be discerned in a sunbeam passing through a lattice is the first of quantities, and men call it ‘atrasarenu’(ात्रसारेणू ).

Eight of these ‘atrasarenus’ are supposed equal in weight to one minute poppy-seed ‘likhya’(लिख्या).

Three of those seeds are equal to one black mustard-seed ‘raja-sarshapa’(रज सर्षपा).

Three of these last to a white mustard seed ‘gaur-sarshapa’(गौर सर्षपा).


Six white mustard-seeds are equal to a middle sized barley-corn ‘yava’(यवा).

Three such barley-corns to one ‘ raktika’(रक्तिका) or ‘Ratti’(रत्ती) (The Bangladeshi currency gets its name ‘Taka’ from the corruption of this ‘Raktika’.

Five Raktika’/ ‘Ratti’ of gold are one ‘masha’(माशा). Hereafter, multiples of Ratti are used to measure further like sixteen such ‘mashas’ make one ‘suvarna’(सुवर्ण) measure….