How many grams is 1 tola of gold? And why a pavan is not the same

Ask a jeweller in Lucknow for a tola of gold and ask one in Kochi for a pavan, and you are asking for two quite different objects. A tola is 11.6638 grams. A pavan is 8 grams. The tola is 45.8% heavier.

At the 22K rates we recorded on 25 September 2026, that is the difference between ₹1,63,241 and ₹1,11,964 — ₹51,277 — for what both parties might casually call "one piece".

Almost every confusion about gold pricing in India starts here, before purity, before making charges. So here are the units, with today's numbers attached.

The units, exactly

Unit	Grams	Where it is used
Gram	1	The legal standard, and what every bill shows
Pavan (also pavun, sovereign)	8	Kerala and much of south India
10 grams	10	How the market quotes the headline rate
Tola (also bhori, bhari)	11.6638	North and east India

Two things about that table are worth saying plainly.

A tola is not 10 grams, though it is often treated as though it were. It is 11.6638 grams — the old weight of a silver rupee coin, which is why the number is so odd. The market quotes a "10 gram" rate because 10 grams is a round number, not because it equals a tola.

A pavan is the British gold sovereign, which weighed roughly 8 grams. Kerala inherited the coin and kept the unit. "Pavan" and "sovereign" mean the same weight.

What each unit costs today

National median rates, 25 September 2026:

	24K	22K	18K
1 gram	₹15,268	₹13,996	₹11,452
1 pavan (8 g)	₹1,22,148	₹1,11,964	₹91,612
10 grams	₹1,52,685	₹1,39,955	₹1,14,515
1 tola (11.6638 g)	₹1,78,089	₹1,63,241	₹1,33,568
100 grams	₹15,26,850	₹13,99,550	₹11,45,150

Read down the 22K column, the one most Indian jewellery is sold in. A pavan, ten grams and a tola are ₹1.12 lakh, ₹1.40 lakh and ₹1.63 lakh. Three prices people use interchangeably in conversation, ₹51,000 apart end to end.

Where this actually costs people money

Comparing a quote in one unit against a quote in another. If one shop quotes per tola and the next quotes per 10 grams, the tola quote is for 16.6% more metal. It will look dearer and may well be cheaper. Convert both to a per-gram figure before you compare anything — it is one division and it is the only way the two numbers mean the same thing.

Assuming a tola is 10 grams. On 22K, one tola costs ₹23,286 more than ten grams. That is not a rounding error; it is the price of another 1.66 grams of gold.

Assuming a pavan is 10 grams. It is 2 grams less, so ₹27,991 less on 22K. Ten grams is 25% more gold than a pavan, so someone expecting "about ten grams" from a pavan chain is expecting a quarter more than they are buying.

Mixing units inside one order. Two pavan is 16 grams. One and a half tola is 17.4957 grams. They sound like similar quantities and differ by 1.5 grams — about ₹20,900 of 22K gold.

None of this requires anyone to be dishonest. The units are simply different, and the words travel further than the definitions do.

The habit that fixes it

Ask for the rate per gram, and ask for the weight in grams.

Both numbers are on every legitimate bill, because the gram is the legal unit of trade in India. A bill that quotes only "1 pavan" and a total, with no per-gram rate and no gram weight, is a bill you cannot check. Ask for it to show:

1. Weight in grams
2. Rate per gram for that purity
3. Making charge, as its own line
4. GST, as its own line

Multiply the first two and you have the metal cost. Everything else is negotiable, and everything else is where the variation between shops actually lives — as we covered when we looked at purity, the karat difference is arithmetic you can check, while the making charge is a percentage someone chose.

You can switch between grams, 10 grams, tola and pavan on any city page, and work out an exact weight with our gold calculator.

While we are here: the other metals

Silver is bought by weight too, but in much larger amounts, so the useful units are different:

	Silver
1 gram	₹249.90
100 grams	₹24,990
1 kilogram	₹2,49,900

Per gram, silver's price looks trivial, which is exactly why it should be converted. A ₹5 per gram move — one ordinary step for silver — is ₹5,000 on a kilogram.

And platinum, which surprises people: at ₹5,390 a gram it costs about 35% of 24K gold. Ten grams of platinum is ₹53,900 against gold's ₹1,52,685. Platinum was once dearer than gold; today, in India, it is not close. For a plain wedding band that is worth knowing, though platinum is harder to resell and fewer jewellers work with it.

Frequently asked questions

How many grams is 1 tola of gold? 11.6638 grams. It is not 10 grams, though the two are often conflated — one tola is 16.6% more gold than ten grams.

What is 1 pavan of gold in grams? 8 grams. Pavan, pavun and sovereign all mean the same weight, and it is the standard unit in Kerala and much of south India.

What is the price of 1 tola gold today? At our national median rates on 25 September 2026: ₹1,78,089 for 24K and ₹1,63,241 for 22K. Rates change daily — the city pages carry today's number and let you switch the unit.

Is a tola the same as a bhori? Yes. Bhori, or bhari, is the same 11.6638 grams, used in eastern India.

How many pavan in a tola? 1.458. Put the other way, one pavan is 0.6859 tola. Neither converts to a round number, which is part of why mixing the two causes trouble.

Why does the gold rate get quoted for 10 grams and not 1 tola? Because 10 grams is a round metric quantity and the gram is the legal unit of trade. The tola survives in conversation rather than on bills.

Which unit should I ask for? Grams, always, whatever unit the conversation started in. It is the unit on the bill, and it is the only one that makes two shops' quotes comparable.

Rates are national medians we recorded on 25 September 2026 and have changed since. Unit conversions are exact and do not change. Today's rates are on the home page and the city pages.