guz

1

In Nepal, 20^th century, a unit of length used for textiles, = 1 yard.

United Nations, 1966.

2

In India, a unit of length that varies with locality. Also called gudge.

Bengal	36 inches
Mumbai (Bombay)	27 inches
Chennai (Madras)	33 inches
Government Survey guz	33 inches

sources

CLOTH MEASURE
…
24 inches, — — — 1 Guz.

The Bombay almanack.
Bombay: printed by John Turner, at the Gazette Press, [1798].

In most of the provinces under this presidency, the Guz is divided into 20 tussoo. In Guzerat it measures 27.5 inches, making the cubit of 14 tussoo, equal to 19.25 inches. At Bombay and in Malabar it is 28 inches, and the cubit 19.6 inches. In the Deccan, the Dooab, the Southern Konkan, and Surat, and also in Cutch, the Guz is divided into 24 tussoo, but of a greater variety of length, and the cubit into 14 tussoo. The Peishwa's Guz, which is in use in the public departments at Poonah, is 33.86 inches. At seven of the principal towns in the Dooab, the Guz varies from 31.75 inches to 34.75 inches, and broad cloth, velvet, chintz, and other articles of European manufacture are measured by it. An average accurately taken at 12 of the chief towns in the Southern Konkan, makes the Guz 33.438 inches, and the cubit 1.508 [sic] inches.

In Surat the Guz used by tailors is 27.8, and by artificers 24 inches. In Cutch the Guz is divided into 24 tussoo, and measures 26.5 inches. The length of the cubit, however, almost everywhere, is usually determined by the mean length of five different men's arms measured from the elbow to the end of the middle finger: turbans, &c. are sold by this measure, but it is seldom met with outside of Surat, as a measure, unless with tailors: purchasers usually by their own arm's length.

Robert Montgomery Martin.
History of the Colonies of the British Empire in the West Indies, South America, North America, Asia...
London: W. H. Allen & Co. and George Routledge, 1843.
Page 144 of Appendix 4.

The Ilahee Guz

Is a measure used in Hindostan. Formerly the guz was of three kinds, long, middling, and short. Each was divided into twenty-four parts, called Tesuj. A tesuj of the long guz was equal to the breadth of eight ordinary barley corns; and a tesuj of the last measured six barley corns. The long guz was used for measuring cultivated lands, roads, forts, reservoirs, and mud-walls. The middling guz served for measuring buildings of stone and wood, thatches, religious houses, wells, and gardens; and the short guz was employed for measuring cloth, armour, beds, palkees, chairs, carts, &c. In some other countries the guz consists of twenty-four tesujes; but they divide it after the following manner:—

12 Weheemahs make one Hebbah;
8 Hebbahs make one Zerrah;
12 Zerrahs make one Kitmeer;
8 Kitmeers make one Nekeer;
6 Nekeers make one Feteel;
6 Feteels make one Ful;
6 Mustard-seeds make one Barley-corn;
2 Barley-corns make one Hubbah;

or,

4 Tesuj make one Dang;
6 Dangs make one Guz.

Others make the guz consist of twenty-four fingers, each measuring the breadth of six barley-corns, and each of the later being equal to the thickness of six hairs taken from the mane of a Yabu horse. In some ancient books the guz is said to consist of two spans and two inches; and this guz was divided into sixteen equal parts, each of which was subdivided into quarters, called P'her; so that the p'her was the sixty-fourth part of a guz. Other ancient authors say the guz was of seven kinds:
1st, The gus sowdah, consisting of twenty-four fingers, and two-thirds of a finger, which Haroon Resheed [Haroun Al Rasheed] measured from the hand of one of his Abyssinian slaves. The nilometer of Egypt is made after this measure, whch is also used for measuring cloths and buildings.
2nd, The Kusbeh guz, called also Aameh and Dowr, consists of twenty-four fingers, and was invented by Ebn Abyliclah.
3d, The Yousefy guz consists of twenty-five fingers, and is used at Baghdad for measuring buildings.
4th, The little Hasheemeeah guz [Hashemite guz], of twenty-eight fingers and a third, was invented by Belal, the son of Abeebirdeh; altho' some attribute it to Abu Musa Asharee.
5th, The long Hasheemeeah guz, was invented by Mansoor Abbassy [al-Mansour al-'Abbasi (reigned 136-158 A.H.)]. Both the Hesheemeeah guzes are called Guz Mullik and Guz Zeeadeeah, because Zeead [Ziyad], the adopted son of Abu Sofian, made use of them for measuring the Arabian irak.
6th, The Omareeah guz, of thirty-one fingers, was invented by the Khalif Omar [Caliph Umar (c. 581-644)]. Having added together the contents of the long, middling, and short guz, he took a third of the aggregate sum, and added four fingers to it. He closed both ends of the measure with tin, and sent it to Hezeefeh, and Osman the son of Hanif, in order that they might measure with it the Babylonian irak.
7th, The Mamooneah guz of sixty-nine fingers and a half, Mamoon Abassy invented and used it in measuring rivers, cultivated lands, and roads.

There was also formerly a guz consisting of twenty fingers, used for measuring cloths. The guz Mesahet, according to some, was also of twenty-eight fingers, whilst others make it of different lengths.

Sultan Secunder Loedee invented a guz in Hindostan, consisting of the breadth of forty-one iscunderees and a half, which was a round silver coin adulterated with copper: Hemaioon made it complete forty-two iscunderees. This guz is equal to thirty-two fingers; but according to some ancient authors, this guz was in use before the time of Loedee. Sheer Khan and Selim Khan, who abolished the custom of dividing the crops, and made a measurement of the cultivated lands, used this guz for that purpose.

Till the thirty-first year of the present reign, although the guz of Akber Shah, consisting of forty-six fingers, was used as a cloth measure, yet the secunderee guz was employed for every other purpose. His majesty taking into consideration the inconveniences arising from a multiplicity of measures, commanded that for all purposes there should be only one guz, consisting of forty-one fingers, and he named it the Ilahee guz.

Abū al-Fazl ibn Mubārak.
Francis Gladwin, translator.
Ayeen Akbery, or the Institutes of the Emperor Akber. Vol. 1.
London: Printed by G. Auld for J. Sewell, Vernor and Hood, &c., 1800.
Pages 281-283.

The Ilahy guj of Akber was intended to supercede the multiplicity of measures in use in the 16th century, and in a great degree it still maintains its position as the standard of the Upper Provinces. In general, however, different measures are employed in each trade, and the cloth merchant in particular has a distinct guj of his own. Thus the cloth guj has assimilated in many places to two haths, or one yard; and the frequent employment of English tape-measures, as well as carpenter's two-feet rules, will ere long confirm the adoption of the British standard to the exclusion of the native system, for the linear measures in the bazar.

The true length of the Ilhay guz became a subject of zealous investigation by Mr. Newnham, Collector of Furukhabad, and Major Hodgson, Surveyor General, in the year 1824, during the progress of the great revenue survey of the western provinces, when it was found to be the basis of all the records of land measurements and rents of Upper India.—As might have been expected no data could be found for fixing the standard of Akber with perfect accuracy; but every comparison concurred in placing it between the limits of 30 and 35 English inches; and the great majority of actual measures of land in Rohilkhund, Delhi, Agra, &c. brought it nearly to an average of 33 inches. Mr. Duncan, in the settlement of the Benares province in 1795, had assumed 33.6 inches to the ilahy guz, on the authority, it may be presumed, of standards in the city, making the beega = 3136 sq. yards.

The results of the different modes of determination resorted to in 1824-5, so characteristic of three rude but ingenious contrivances of the natives, are curious and worthy of being recorded. Major Hodgson made the length of the ilahy guz

From the average measurement of 76 men's finger-breadths	= 31.55 in.
From the average size of the marble slabs in the pavement of the Taj at Agra, (said to be each a Shahjehany guz of 42 fingers)	= 33.58
From the side of the reservoir at the same place, called 24 guz	= 32.54
From the circuit of the whole terrace, 532 guz?	= 35.80
Mr. Newnham, from the average size of 14 char-yaree rupees, supposed to be each one finger's-breadth, makes it	= 19.20
From the testimony of inhabitants of Furukhabad	= 31.50
From statement in the Ayeen Akbery, of the weight of the cubic guz of 72 kinds of timber, (this would require a knowledge of the weights)
Mr. Halhed, from average diameter of 246 barley corns	= 31.84
From ½ sum of diameters of 40 Munsooree pice	= 32.02
From ½ of 4 human cubits measured on a string	= 33.70
From average of copper wires returned by Tehseeldars of Moradabad as counterparts of actual measures from which their beegas were formed	= 33.50
Mr. Duncan, as above noticed, assumed the ilahy guz at Benares	= 33.60
In Barelly, Boolunshuhr, Agra, as in the following table, it is	= 32.5

It is natural to suppose that the guz adopted for measuring the land should vary on the side of excess, and probably all of the above, thus derived, are too long. The Western Revenue Board, thinking so many discrepancies irreconcileable, suggested, that the settlements should every where be made in the local beega, the surveyors merely noting the actual value of the iláhy guz in each village, and entering the measurement also in acres; but the Government wisely determined rather to select a general standard, which should meet as far as possible the existing circumstances of the country. Thus the further prosecution of the theorethetical question was abandoned, and an arbitrary value of the ilahy guz was assumed at 33 inches, which was in 1825-6 ordered to be introduced in all the revenue-survey records, with a note of the local variation therefrom on the village maps, as well as a memorandum of the measure in English acres. Mr. Sec. Mackenzie thus describes the convenience which the adoption of this standard (sanctioned at first only as an experiment and liable to reconsideration) would afford in comparisons with English measures.

“Taking the jureeb (side of the square beega) at 60 guntehs, or 60 guz, the beega will be 3600 square guz, or 3025 square yards, or five-eighths of an English acre (3 roods, 5 perches). The jureeb will be equal to 5 chains of 11 yards, each chain being 4 guntehs. In those places where the jureeb is assumed at 54 guz square, it would equal 4½ chains, giving 2350¼ square yards (or 2 roods, 10 perches). In either case the conversion from one to the other would be simple, and the connection between the operations of the surveyors and the measurements of the revenue officers would be readily perceived.”

This convenient beega of 3600 square ilahy guz, or 3025 square yards, or five-eighths of an acre, may be now called the standard of the Upper Provinces. It is established also at Patna, and has been introduced in the settlements of the Sâgur and Nerbudda territories.

[James Prinsep.]
Useful Tables, forming an Appendix to the Journal of the Asiatic Society. Part the First. Coins, Weights and Measures of British India.
Calcutta: Printed at the Baptist Mission Press, 1834.
Pages 88-90.

Gaz, Guz, vernacularly, Gaj, or Guj, H[indi]. (P[ersian]. ) A measure of length, a yard. In the reign of Akbar there prevailed a great number of measures of this denomination, varying in length from 18 to 58 inches; to correct which disorder, they were all abrogated, and a standard gaz established in their stead, termed the Iláhi-gaz. The actual value of this measure was made the subject of many inquiries and experiments upon the institution of the great revenue survey of the western provinces, when it was found to be the basis of all the records of land measurements in that part of India : as no standard had been preserved, a fixed object of comparison could not be procured, and the different reports and measurements made it vary from 29 to 35 inches, and as the majority of actual measures of land made it 33 inches, that was assumed as the fixed standard value, and it constitutes the basis of the survey measurements. In trade, a greater latitude prevails, and the cloth merchant, in particular, has a gaz of his own, equal to two háts, or cubits, or an English yard.

In Guzerat the gaz is 27¼ inches.

Reshmi-gaz, (?) Mar[athi]. A measure under the former government = 18 or 19 tasus.

H. H. Wilson, 1855, pages 171 and 577.

Iláhí-gaz, H. () The standard gaz, or yard, of 41 fingers, instituted by Akbar ; authoritatively fixed by the British government at 33 inches: see Gaz.

H. H. Wilson, 1855, page 216.

3

In Persia, a unit of length, also called zer and gueza, varying from 24 to 44 inches. See gaz for later developments in Iran.

common	104.0 centimeters (40.95 inches)
Government standard	= 36.5 inches (92.71 cm)
Retail trade	25 inches

4

In Arabia, a unit of length, varying from 25 to 37 inches.