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Herman TIEKEN
by the ointment, as this might expose their transgression or else betray his infatuation. In this situation it is hard to believe that the husband would be afraid of getting stained by plain ghee, which was commonly used as a cosmetic by both men and women. Vannagghaa in vannagghaatuppamuhi indeed makes clear that a particular dye is involved as well. The occurrence of tuppāņaņā side by side with vannagghaatuppamuhi would almost certainly rule out the analysis of vaņņagghaatuppa as a dvandva, i.e. "coloured ghee and tuppa”. Rather, the meaning "colour” may be assumed to be present in the word tuppa itself, with vannagghaa "coloured ghee” specifying tuppa ("tuppa, that is, coloured ghee”) or explaining how the face has come to acquire its tuppa appearance, namely by applying coloured ghee.
Gātha 22 refers to the special attraction formed by the acrobatics involved in kissing the woman without getting stained by the ointment applied to her face:
āarapaņāmiottham aghadiaņāsam asamhaaņiļālam vannagghaatuppamuhie tie pariumvaņam bharimo, I still think of how I kissed her when her face [had a tuppa-colour through the application of coloured ghee / was (anointed) with tuppa, or (a kind of) coloured ghee]: our lips carefully pursed to keep our noses from touching and our
foreheads from meeting. In 520 a woman contrasts her husband's present lack of interest with his former infatuation, which made him defy social conventions:
vannagghaatuppamuhim jo mam aiāareņa cumvamto eņhim so bhūsanabhūsiam pi alasāai chivamto, That same man who once (flaunted all rules and) when my face (had a tuppacolour through the application of coloured ghee / was (anointed) with tuppa, or (a kind of) coloured ghee), kissed me carefully (in order not to get stained), now no longer cares to touch me even when I am decorated with ornaments.
See also gathā 950, and 530:
loo jūrai jūrau vaanijjam hoi hou tam nāma ehi nimajjasu pāse pupphavai na ei me nidda If people get angry, let them. If it is blameworthy, so be it. Come, and lie down beside me, o
menstruating woman, for either way I can't sleep; Compare this gāthā with Hc IV 438:
soevā para vāriā pupphavaihim samāņu jaggevā puņu ko dharai jai so veu pamāņu It is forbidden to sleep with menstruating women but who would survive to stay awake, going by this excitement?
2. On compounds of this type, a regional word (tuppa) being explained by a regular Sanskrit synonym, see Tieken (1994: 235). See also below, $ 7.
3. For the reading vannagghaa, see Tieken (1983: 221-22). Tuppa is found in, among other manuscripts, R, S and T; for the variant litta adopted by Weber, see § 5 below.