Amid the glorious and rich history of Indian culture, the artifacts that have most affected the majority of people, and their everyday lives have been largely overlooked. Weights, so significant in agriculture, markets, trade, jewellery, medicine, and industry, commonly get relegated to the scrapyard once their use has finished. Weights first became widely used in India in the sixteenth century, with the reforms and growing influence of the Mughal Era, a period which lasted for about 300 years. Many of the weights produced during this time are remarkable for their distinct geometric and organic forms, many of which rival the individuality and grace of the highly celebrated weights of Burma. However, by the mid-nineteenth century, the influence of European colonialism transported industrialism and its ordinarity to India, and the era of cast iron weights began. This book endeavours to tackle a subject, which so far has defied treatment, and indeed, the Indian museums are largely devoid of Mughal weights in their collections. Given the almost complete absence of recorded material on the subject of Indian weights as artifacts, the author has attempted to assemble a body of knowledge and pictorial records, based on surviving examples of the fascinating Mughal and related weights. About the Author Rick Willis is a retired botanist, published formerly on plant chemical interactions. Recently, he has concentrated on his long-term interest in Asian art and antiquities. For over 30 years, he has accumulated a vast collection of trade weights from Southeast Asia and India, which form the core material for this book, as well as a recent book on Burmese weights, and anticipated works on weights of Laos, and weights of nineteenth and twentieth century India.