One tola is 11.6638 grams. Not 12. The 12 gram figure is repeated on rate sites, in shop conversations and across social media, and it is simply wrong — it is a rounding that nobody ever corrected. At the weights people actually trade, the error is large enough to notice on the bill.
Here is the difference in money. At today's 24 carat rate of Rs 40,264.63 per gram:
| Weight used | Grams | 1 tola | 5 tola | 10 tola |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Correct tola | 11.6638 g | Rs 469,639 | Rs 2,348,193 | Rs 4,696,386 |
| "12 gram" tola | 12.0000 g | Rs 483,176 | Rs 2,415,878 | Rs 4,831,755 |
| Overstatement | 0.3362 g | Rs 13,537 | Rs 67,685 | Rs 135,370 |
That is a 2.88% error on every single quote. Applied to a ten tola holding it is Rs 135,370 of gold that does not exist.
Where the 12 gram figure came from
The tola is a South Asian weight standard that predates the metric system. It was formalised under British India as the weight of the one-rupee silver coin, fixed at 180 troy grains — which converts to 11.66380 grams. That is the definition, and it is the one bullion markets still use.
"12 grams" survives for the ordinary reason that bad numbers survive: it is easier to say, it is close enough for a conversation, and once one source publishes it another copies it. Rounding 11.6638 up to 12 makes mental arithmetic simple, and mental arithmetic is how most informal gold conversations happen. The problem is that a convenience used in conversation ends up printed on a quote.
Every tola conversion, correctly
| Unit | In grams | In tola |
|---|---|---|
| 1 tola | 11.6638 g | 1.0000 |
| 1 gram | 1 g | 0.0857 |
| 10 grams | 10 g | 0.8574 |
| 1 masha (tola ÷ 12) | 0.9720 g | 0.0833 |
| 1 ratti (masha ÷ 8) | 0.1215 g | 0.0104 |
| 1 troy ounce | 31.1035 g | 2.6666 |
| 1 pavan (India) | 8 g | 0.6859 |
| 1 kilogram | 1000 g | 85.7357 |
A tola is also exactly 0.375 troy ounces — three eighths. That relationship is exact, not approximate, and it is the cleanest way to sanity-check any tola figure against an international quote.
The second error: which tola an API returns
There is a subtler version of this problem that affects data sources rather than conversation. Some market data feeds expose two tola fields — one labelled for Pakistan and one for India — with different values. The "Pakistan" field is often given as 0.40125 troy ounces, which works out to 12.4791 grams.
That figure does not match what any Pakistani sarafa market quotes. The tola traded in Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi is 11.6638 grams — the same tola India uses. A site that passes the 12.48 gram field straight through publishes tola prices roughly 7% too high, which is a very visible error on a rate board.
This is why every tola figure on this site is derived from the gram price rather than read from a tola field. The conversion is done once, correctly, and everything downstream inherits it.
Masha and ratti: the sub-units still in use
Pakistani jewellers commonly deduct small weights in masha and ratti rather than in decimal grams, particularly when accounting for stones, solder or wear on an old piece. The system is straightforward once the ratios are clear:
- 1 tola = 12 masha. One masha is 0.97198 grams — just under a gram, which is why the two get conflated.
- 1 masha = 8 ratti. One ratti is 0.12150 grams.
- 1 tola = 96 ratti. A deduction quoted as "2 masha 4 ratti" is 2.4291 grams.
If a jeweller quotes a deduction in masha and ratti, convert it to grams before agreeing to it. The unit is traditional but the arithmetic is not optional — and a deduction that sounds trivial in ratti is real money once it is multiplied by the gram rate.