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Units of Length In 17th–18th Century Bengal Temples: Context Bishnupur

Peu Banerjee

Abstract


Shubhankari is an almost-forgotten mathematical treatise of Bengal that was widely used in the pre-colonial era. It consists of verses, called arjyas, which deal with everyday computations like weights and measures, land measurement and so on. The arjyas list various units of length measures, like the angula (finger), muth (fist), hath (hand) and the relation among these units. The same types of units have been found in Monu Mistiri’s handbook on construction of temples, of which only a few pages survive. The author conducted in-depth research and realised that these units of length were used in India since the Harappan times and have been mentioned in ancient treatises of architecture like Arthashastra, Brihatsamhita, Mayamata, Manasara and Bhubanapradipa. These units of length also matched the units used in the ancient world viz. the cubit and the digit. To find out whether the ek-ratna temples of Bishnupur were constructed using these length measures, the author measured ten such temples and collected on-site data. These dimensions were then converted to hath-angula units and matched with the Shubhankari system of measurements. The results showed that there was a very good match, establishing that these units of length were used in the 17th–18th century temples of Bishnupur.


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.37628/ijah.v5i2.937

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