Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c22.100

c22.100

Clepsydras or water clocks (*pē-teṭi*) were of copper. These instruments were used only by the king and by the astrologers. “They have,” says Knox, “no Clocks, Hour-glasses, or Sun-Dials, but keep their time by guess. The King indeed hath a kind of Instrument to measure time. It is a Copper Dish holding about a Pint, with a very small hole in the bottom. This Dish they set a swimming in an Earthen Pot of water, the water leaking in at the bottom till the Dish be full, it sinks. And then they take it out, and set it empty on the water again, and that makes one *Pay*. Few or none use this but the King, who keeps a man on purpose to watch it continually. The people will use it upon some occasions, as if they are to sow their Corn at any particular hour, as being the good lucky Season, then they make use of the Copper Pan, to know the time exactly.” The *pēya*, or ‘*Pay*’ as Knox calls it, is an ‘hour’ of twenty-four minutes, thirty making a day; the *pē-teṭiya* usually measure one *pēya*, but there are others larger and smaller.