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The seeds of Abrus precatorius are very consistent in weight. Formerly Indians used these seeds to weigh gold using a measure called a Ratti, where 8 Ratti = 1 Masha; 12 Masha = 1 Tola (11.6 Grams).
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India went metric and decimal starting from my school days and achieving the completion of the process during my university years.
I guess at least here, India proved more advanced than the US which, I am told, still wallows in gallons, pints, quarts, cups, table spoons and tea spoons, if not gills:
My MIT pen-friend and I once exchanged my notes on Upanishads with his family Bible. He read all the 100 hand-written pages of the xerox copy of my notes, and I read all the 4 Gospels and large parts of the Old Testament. We liked each others' scriptures but were sensible enough to agree that it is impossible for a born Christian to truly appreciate the Hindu culture and vice versa..."you screw with your religion and I screw with mine"...
He is a church-going Christian and I am a temple-skipping Hindu. And he occasionally gives a sermon in his church:
eftaylor.com/thoughts
But his church is funny...they scowl at any mention of Jesus!!!
And my Hinduism is equally funny...I don't even wear my brahminical sacred thread.
But we both are teachers of physics by profession and that makes it tough for us to reconcile religious orthodoxy with the physicist's view of our universe.
By the way, Upanishads are not orthodoxy...they are heterodoxy and at times scowl on idol worship and rituals.
Sorry for that unintended digression...
In my childhood my mom used to take me to the gold ornaments shop in Nellore...that was the only shopping she ever indulged in...the itinerant glass and mitti bangle-sellers used to visit our homes.
And I saw with incredulous eyes that pieces of gold were weighed against some red seeds! And I asked my mom what those seeds are called. And she said: Guriginjalu (see pic above).
Apparently all guriginjalu weigh the same...put them on the two pans of the balance and see for yourself!
That was the state of our units of measurement before we went metric.
When we were living in Qrs C1-97 at IIT KGP our fence was laced with creepers of this seed that came in pods which, when dried, can be peeled off to reveal the lovely guriginjalu. My infant son used to fiddle with them fondly but it was a dangerous thing to do...the bright red seeds are small and poisonous.
Talking of guringijalu, there is this saying in our Telugu that the chap who is prone to criticize and find fault with others as a rule, is like a guriginja which is bright red all over but is unaware of the black spot on its own seat.
Here is the Vemana Padyam about such folks:
which roughly means:
Some lessons there for the two Shashis I was talking about the other day...the lowly lit crits...
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Abrus precatorius, known commonly as jequirity,[1] Crab's eye,[1] rosary pea,[1] precatory pea or bean,[1] John Crow Bead,[2] Indian licorice,[1] Akar Saga, gidee gidee[1] or Jumbie bead[1] in Trinidad & Tobago,[3] is a slender, perennial climber that twines around trees, shrubs, and hedges. It is a legume with long, pinnate-leafleted leaves.
The plant is best known for its seeds, which are used as beads and in percussion instruments, and which are toxic due to the presence of abrin. The plant is native to Indonesia and grows in tropical and subtropical areas of the world where it has been introduced. It has a tendency to become weedy and invasive where it has been introduced...
...In Trinidad in the West Indies the brightly coloured seeds are strung
into bracelets and worn around the wrist or ankle to ward off jumbies or evil spirits and "mal-yeux" - the evil eye. The Tamils use Abrus
seeds of different colors. The red variety with black eye is the most
common, but there are black, white and green varieties as well.
...wiki
India went metric and decimal starting from my school days and achieving the completion of the process during my university years.
I guess at least here, India proved more advanced than the US which, I am told, still wallows in gallons, pints, quarts, cups, table spoons and tea spoons, if not gills:
Some cowboy hats have been called "ten-gallon" hats. The term came into
use about 1925. The Stetson hat company boasted that the tight weave of
most Stetsons hats made them sufficiently waterproof to be used as a
bucket. Early print advertising by Stetson showed a cowboy giving his
horse a drink of water from a hat. However, even the Stetson company
notes that a "ten-gallon" hat holds only 3 quarts (about 3 L instead of
about 38 L).
And of course miles, furlongs, yards, feet and inches, if not ells.
I recall that our nationwide conversion from one system to the other was as painful as the conversion of an orthodox Hindu to an evangelist Christian (and vice versa). Our conversion of units and measures to the decimal system proved ultimately very useful to kids...they didn't have to mug up and sweat it out with all those ugly things like one rupee = 64 pice, and fractions there of.
On the other hand I think it is spiritually useless to convert from one religion to the other as long as man (and woman) is fettered with this body and is constrained to wash it, clean it, feed it, drink it, work it, sex it, and sleep it day in and night out...he remains as vile as he was.
Chandogyopanishad says:
Maghavan martyam vaa idam sariram aattam mrityuna
Tad Asyaamritasyaasarirasyaatmano adhisthaanam
Aaatto va sa sarira: priyaapriyaabhyaam
na vai sa sarirasya sata: priyaapriyayor apahatir asti
asariram vaa va santam na priyaapriye sprisata:
O Maghavan, mortal, verily, is this body. It is held by death.
But it is the support of that deathless, bodiless Self.
Verily, the incarnate Self is held by pleasure and pain.
Verily, there is no freedom from pleasure and pain for one who is incarnate.
Verily, pleasure and pain do not touch one who is bodiless.
...S. Radhakrishnan
Pope John Paul II once said that the 21st century will see the entire Asia (meaning the heathen Indians and Chinese) as a fertile ground for conversion to Christianity (and thereby to civilization and salvation). Let him try...but where is he now?
My MIT pen-friend and I once exchanged my notes on Upanishads with his family Bible. He read all the 100 hand-written pages of the xerox copy of my notes, and I read all the 4 Gospels and large parts of the Old Testament. We liked each others' scriptures but were sensible enough to agree that it is impossible for a born Christian to truly appreciate the Hindu culture and vice versa..."you screw with your religion and I screw with mine"...
He is a church-going Christian and I am a temple-skipping Hindu. And he occasionally gives a sermon in his church:
eftaylor.com/thoughts
But his church is funny...they scowl at any mention of Jesus!!!
And my Hinduism is equally funny...I don't even wear my brahminical sacred thread.
But we both are teachers of physics by profession and that makes it tough for us to reconcile religious orthodoxy with the physicist's view of our universe.
By the way, Upanishads are not orthodoxy...they are heterodoxy and at times scowl on idol worship and rituals.
Sorry for that unintended digression...
In my childhood my mom used to take me to the gold ornaments shop in Nellore...that was the only shopping she ever indulged in...the itinerant glass and mitti bangle-sellers used to visit our homes.
And I saw with incredulous eyes that pieces of gold were weighed against some red seeds! And I asked my mom what those seeds are called. And she said: Guriginjalu (see pic above).
Apparently all guriginjalu weigh the same...put them on the two pans of the balance and see for yourself!
That was the state of our units of measurement before we went metric.
When we were living in Qrs C1-97 at IIT KGP our fence was laced with creepers of this seed that came in pods which, when dried, can be peeled off to reveal the lovely guriginjalu. My infant son used to fiddle with them fondly but it was a dangerous thing to do...the bright red seeds are small and poisonous.
Talking of guringijalu, there is this saying in our Telugu that the chap who is prone to criticize and find fault with others as a rule, is like a guriginja which is bright red all over but is unaware of the black spot on its own seat.
Here is the Vemana Padyam about such folks:
Tappulennu vaaru tandopatandambu
Lurvi janula kella nundu tappu
Tappulennu vaaru tama tappulerugaru
Viswadaabhirama vinura Vema!
which roughly means:
Millions are chaps who find fault with others
Everyone in this world has some fault
Fault-seekers are unaware of their own faults
Listen, Oh! the beloved of the bounteous Vema!
Some lessons there for the two Shashis I was talking about the other day...the lowly lit crits...
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