The Colas c31.27

c31.27

How little these efforts at standardisation succeeded is clear from the chaos of measuring standards revealed by the later Cōḷa inscriptions. At Tiruvorṟiyūr, in A.D. 1072, the *vēli* comprised 2000 *kuḷis* by the sixteen-span rod;⁸² while in 1204 it is equated to 6⅙ *pāḍagams* in Uttaramērūr.⁸³ The *mā* was made up of 138 *kuḷis* in 1097 at Tirukkaḍaiyūr,⁸⁴ and of 128 *kuḷis* by the standard of the *sabhā* of Tiruvāḍutuṟai in 1110,⁸⁵ the same *sabhā* employing in the very next year another measure by which the *mā* was 100 *kuḷis*.⁸⁶ Again, in the South Arcot district, the *mā* was reckoned at 512 *kuḷis* by the fourteen span rod in 1138;⁸⁷ and the same number of *kuḷis* to the *mā* is found in a record from Muniyūr (Tanjore district) in 1220, the length of the rod, however, not being specified in this case.⁸⁸ And a *mā* of 513 *kuḷis* is found in Vaḷuvūr in the same district in the reign of Rājādhirāja II.⁸⁹ This list is by no means exhaustive; it is seldom that we have the data for converting one unit into another as is found in some records of the *sabhā* of Tiruvāḍutuṟai which equate 4½ *mās* of their measure to six *mās* of the survey, and six *mās* and a *kāṇi* to eight *mās* according to the general survey which took 100 *mās* to the *kuḷi*.⁹⁰