Indian sword blades

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hi Rick and Ian,

I am 72’’ small, I don’t know how many feet that makes, and my hand is 4’’ across, so Ian is right, we come in all sizes (I think it is English inches, but I am not quite sure).

BTW can anyone tell me, why English and American feet, inches are different? It would be easier if everyone on this forum used metres, centimetres and millimetres, then measurers given on the forum would be the same – now one can’t be sure if the measurers given are in English feet, inches or in American, as nothing is noted – just 3’ 4’’ – sigh.

Hi Brian,

You are right these measurers were used in shipbuilding, architecture, bridge building and in a lot of other places, like maybe carpet making, or they would not have been able to say ‘so and so many knots pr finger’. Only here it was not grains, but feet – Indian feet – but the ground structure of this measure must have been grains. It is the first time I have seen grains mentioned when it comes to measures, so it is interesting to see one of their smaller measures being mentioned. It is mentioned that the tip of the index finger should be equivalent to eight grains (2.3-2.5 cm), the problem occurs if a hands width is mentioned/used, as not all the fingers have the same size, or maybe they had a standard for a hand (but if they had, why say fifty fingers, why not say so and so many hands?), like they must have had for a foot. If they had not had measures like that, a building like Taj Mahal would never have been build, nor would all the forts and, and, and…