The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.251

v1.c10.251

The standard measure for carpenter's work is the *aṅgula*, or finger's breadth of eight barley corns divested of their husk, and laid side by side. This finger would be all but exactly equal to an inch; practically native carpenters, both in Bengal and the North Western Provinces, take the English inch to be equal to eight barley corns or *jaos*. Of this scale the royal bed should measure a hundred, that is eight feet and four inches in length. For princes, a length of ninety inches, or seven feet six inches, is held sufficient. The prime minister comes in for eightyfour inches, the commander-in-chief for seventy-eight, and the high priest for seventy-two. ¹¹⁶ The rule as laid down is imperative; but I fancy the author intended some exceptions, otherwise His Grace the Hindu Archbishop, who happened to be somewhat of a grenadier in height and of Falstaffian proportions, would have made a sad time of it in his bed of barely six feet, unless he got over it by a special dispensation. The breadths of these several bedsteads measured three-fourths of the length, that is four feet six inches to six feet, and the height one-fourth, or one foot six inches to two feet one inch.¹¹⁷ Nothing has been said in the *Bṛhat Saṃhitā* about the size of bedsteads for ordinary people, but it is to be presumed that its measure was not subject to any sliding scale.