Maund (unit)

For people with the surname, see Maund (surname).
A one maund weighing stone of the Madras Presidency
The vast extent of the Bengal Presidency (shown here in 1858) facilitated the adoption of the standard of 100 Troy pounds for the maund throughout British India.

The maund (/ˈmɔːnd/), mun or mann (Bengali: মণ; Urdu: من) is the anglicized name for a traditional unit of mass used in British India, and also in Afghanistan, Persia, and Arabia:[1] the same unit in the Mughal Empire was sometimes written as mann or mun in English, while the equivalent unit in the Ottoman Empire and Central Asia was called the batman. At different times, and in different South Asian localities, the mass of the maund has varied, from as low as 25 pounds (11 kg) to as high as 160 pounds (72 kg): even greater variation is seen in Persia and Arabia.[2][3]

  1. ^ "maund", A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, vol. 6B, 1908, p. 250.
  2. ^ Prinsep, James (1840), Useful tables, forming an appendix to the Journal of the Asiatic Society: part the first, Coins, weights, and measures of British India (2nd ed.), Calcutta: Bishop's College Press, pp. 84–90.
  3. ^ Doursther, Horace (1840), Dictionnaire universel des poids et mesures anciens et modernes, Brussels: Hayez, pp. 259–63.