This is a round gong of mixed metal,* shaped like a griddle but thicker, made of different sizes; and suspended by a cord. It may be not sounded except by royal command, and accompanies the royal equipage.
The Hindu philosophers divide the day and night into four parts, each of which they call pahr. Throughout the greater part of the country, the pahr never exceeds nine gharis* nor is less than six. The ghari is the sixtieth part of a nychthemeron, and is divided into sixty parts, each of which is called a pal which is again subdivided into sixty bipal.
In order to ascertain and indicate the time, a vessel of copper or other metal is made of a hundred ṭánks* weight. In Persian it is called pingán, as an ancient sage sings,
Why reck'st thou of a world whose span
A clepsydra doth mete to man?*
It is in the shape of a bowl narrower at the lower part, twelve fingers in height and breadth. A perforation is made below to admit of a golden tube being passed through of the weight of one Máshá, and in length the breadth of five fingers. It is placed in a basin of pure water in a place undisturbed by the wind. When the bowl is full of water, one ghari is elapsed,* and in order that this should be known to far and near, the gong is struck once, and for the second time, twice, and so on. When a pahr has elapsed, the number of gharis expired therein is first sounded and then more deliberately from one to four (according to the pahr), thus announcing the pahr struck. Thus when it is two pahr, (twelve o'clock), the gong is struck twenty-six times, taking the pahr at eight gharis. The Emperor Baber in his Memoirs writes: “When at the end of a pahr a certain number of gharis had elapsed, this number was sounded while the pahr just expired was unknown. I ordered that the number of the pahr should be repeated after a brief interval.” The Hindu philosophers account 360 breathings of a man in good health as a ghaṛí of time, and each is formed of six inspirations and respirations, of which 21,600 are drawn in the course of a nychthemeron.