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BEI 13-14 (1995-96): 415-429
Herman TIEKEN
Middle-Indic tuppa, Tamil tuppu, and the region of origin of some Śvetambara Jaina texts
1. Middle-Indic tuppa is generally taken to mean "ghee". The meaning is beyond doubt in, for instance, Setubandha 15, 38 (for which, see below, § 5). Turner (CDIAL 5864) furthermore refers to Marathi and Gujarati tüp "ghee" and Marathi tupat "oily". He suggests a non-Aryan origin for the word. It should be noted, however, that according to Burrow and Emeneau (DED 2685) Kannada tuppa "ghee" is not a native Dravidian word but a loanword from Indo-Aryan. One of the aims of the present study is to show that Burrow and Emeneau were right, that is to say, Kannāḍa tuppa "ghee" and its cognates like Tamil tuppam, are indeed Indo-Aryan loanwords. But Turner's suggestion need not be altogether discarded either, for Middle-Indic tuppa is indeed a loanword from the South Indian languages, though not as a word for "ghee" but as a word for a particular red substance. As I will try to show, "ghee" is a later meaning given to the word only after its original meaning had been lost sight of. This process of the "invention" of the meaning "ghee" 'can in fact be followed in the available texts themselves. The use of tuppa as a word for ghee or oil may be taken as an indication of the relatively late date of the text, or at least as an indication of the artificial nature of its language. On the other hand, the occurrence in some North Indian texts of South Indian tuppa as a word for a red colour would seem to point to specific regional origin of these texts in Gujarat.
2. First I would like to draw attention to the instances of tuppa in Hāla's Sattasai. Tuppa is found in the compounds tuppanana (289) and vanṇagghaatuppamuhi (22, 520), which describe a woman who has applied some sort of ointment to her face to mark the fact that she is having her monthly period. While during that time any contact between husband and wife is taboo, for the man this taboo only enhances the woman's desirability.' The couple is very careful, though, that the husband does not get stained
1. See gāthā 480:
jai loanimdiam jai amamgalam jai vi mukkamajjāam
pupphavaidamsanam taha vi dei hiaassa nivvānam,
Even if people find fault with it, even if it is inauspicious, even if it involves breaking the rules, seeing a woman in her period gives pleasure to the heart.