Kalyan Wiki
Thulam Gold
There are numerous ways to measure gold.
‘Tola’ is one such unit that has been prevalent from the Vedic times. To be accurate, 1 Tola of gold equals 11.6638038 gms.
‘Tola’ is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘tol’ that means “measure”. It was used to measure seeds or grains. The ancient people determined 100 Ratti seeds to be one tola. However, they also realized that this is a fragile system as the seeds may not weigh the same every time. Even our pre-colonial coins weighed one tola.
Still, people were not convinced regarding this weighing system. This disbelief of the society led tola to be replaced by metric units in 1956. Gold bars are still weighed in the form of tola, and the average weight of these is ten tolas.
‘Tola’ is not the official unit of measurement, but the generation that used it extensively is still alive. They have not come to terms with grams and tola continues its journey as the measurement of gold in many south Asian countries including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Singapore and Nepal.
