biswa [Hindi बिस्वा]

In India, ? – 19^th century, 1/20th of a bigha.

sources

The Biswa, from () twenty, is the twentieth part of a Beeg,ha; and besides being a measure of land, is also used to signify the extent of proprietary right in an estate. Each estate or village, is considered an integer of one Beeg,ha, which is subdivided into imaginary Biswas, and Biswansees, to show the right of any particular party. Thus, the holder of 5 Biswas is a holder to the extent of one-fourth of the entire village.

H. M. Elliot, 1845, page 90.

Biṣwa, H[indi]. , बिस्वा from bis , S[anskrit]. vinṣati विंशतिः twenty) Lit., a twentieth, but applied especially to the twentieth part of a Bighá. It is also used to express a proportionate share of proprietary right in a village which is conventionally taken as a Bighá, divisible into twenty parts distributed among the sharers…

H. H. Wilson, 1855, page 90.

विंश viṃśa

विंश a. (-शी f.) Twentieth. -शः A twentieth part.

Vaman Shivaram Apte.
Revised and enlarged edition of Prin. V. S. Apte's The practical Sanskrit-English dictionary.
Poona: Prasad Prakashan, 1957-1959.
Accessed through the University of Chicago's Digital Dictionaries of South Asia