Indian Epigraphy c16.s6.40

c16.s6.40

The words Kulyavāpa, Droṇavāpa and Āḍhavāpa indicate the area of land that was required to sow seed grains of the weight respectively of one kulya, droṇa and āḍhaka.² Pargiter, who tried to determine the area of the Kulyavāpa as known from the Faridpur plates,³ pointed out that the staple food of Bengal is rice and the most important grain is paddy and that, according to the Raghuvamśa (IV. 36-37), the usual practice especially in lower Bengal was to transplant in the cultivated land the seedlings taken out from a small plot of land where the paddy seeds had been originally sown. This is the system followed in rice cultivation in many parts of Bengal even today. Pargiter therefore suggested that the Kulyavāpa inidicated that area of land which was required to transplant the seedlings of paddy seeds one kulya in weight. Unfortunately he did not know the actual weight of a kulya of grain. He had moreover to explain the passage ‘having measured with the rod of 8 and 9’ used in the Faridpur plates in connection with the measure-