Indian Epigraphy c16.s6.49

c16.s6.49

The *Droṇa* or *Droṇavāpa* was also known in certain regions outside Bengal and its neighbourhood. Thus the Pandukesvar plates¹ refer to its prevalence in the Kumaun-Garhwal area along with two other land measures called *Nālikavāpa* and *Khārīvāpa*. The word *nālikā* is however not recognized in the Sanskrit lexicons in the sense of a measure of capacity. But Childers’ *Pali Dictionary* seems to suggest that *nāli* or *nāḷi* (i.e. *nālikā*) was originally regarded as the same as *prastha* recognised in Sanskrit lexicons to be the one-sixteenth part of a *droṇa*. Thus the *Nālikāvāpa* appears to have been originally 1/16 of the *Droṇavāpa* and 1/4 of an *Ādhavāpa*. Since the *khārī* was usually regarded as equal to 16 *droṇas*, a *Khārīvāpa* of land appears originally to have been sixteen times a *Droṇavāpa*. Another *vāpa*-ending land measure is the *Khaṇḍukāvāpa* of the Penukonda plates of the Western Gaṅga king Mādhava, which record the grant of a plot of land measuring 65 *Kedāras* and 27 *Khaṇḍukāvāpas*.¹