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Middle-Indic tuppa
417
By merely offering the additional possibility of breaking a taboo the woman in 529 defeats all her competitors:
thoramsuchi runnam savattivaggeṇa pupphavaide
bhuasiharam paino pecchiuna siralaggatuppaliam.
The co-wives shed big tears when they saw the husband's shoulder stained tuppa [stained with tuppa], (the shoulder) having touched the menstruating woman's face.
Tuppalia is a past participle formed on the basis of tuppa + the possessive/emphatic suffix -la, for which, see Pischel (1900: § 595).
The husband in 289 is a fool, asking the woman why she has anointed her face with tuppa..By moving her head she directs his attention to the sanitary napkin she is wearing: tuppaṇanā kino acchasi tti paripucchiai vahuai
viuṇāvedhiajahanatthalai lajjonaam hasiam,
The wife, asked why she had her face (anointed) with tuppa [had a tuppa-face], smiled bashfully, standing there with an extra piece of cloth between her legs.
The above instances allow no conclusion as to whether tuppa in e.g. tuppamuha is an actual dyeing substance applied to the face (tuppamuhi being a compound like payomukha "with milk on the surface") or functions as an object of comparison (like bimba in bimboṣṭha "lips red like the bimba"). Another uncertainty concerns the colour involved. According to the commentaries on the Sattasal passages it would be a kind of yellow, the ointment consisting of a mixture of oil and, among other dyes, turmeric: haridradivarṇapradhanam ghṛtam varnaghṛtam (Gangadhara) and vamṇapradhanam ghṛtam kumkumaharidradisadhitam (anonymous л and E) (see Sattasai, ad gāthā 22). However, while in the Sattasai turmeric is indeed mentioned several times as a cosmetic or a bathing soap (see gathas 58, 80 and 246), its use was clearly not restricted specifically to the time of a woman's monthly period. Moreover, the colour of turmeric is proverbially ephemeral (see MW s.v. haridrā-rāga), which would not agree with the stains remaining visible until the next morning in gatha 529 (see above). Apart from that, there is also no evidence that turmeric was applied with oil, which would be too precious to be washed away in the water, as is the case in gāthās 58 and 246. For a more definite conclusion concerning the colour denoted by tuppa we may turn to the instances of the word in some Jaina narrative texts.
3. In Vivägasuya 1, 2, 14 in a description of a condemned criminal led to the place of execution we find a past participle tuppiya. The same passage is found in 1, 3, 13 and in 1, 9, 6, in the latter instance purisam "a man" having been substituted by itthiyam "a woman". Vivagasuya 1, 2, 14 (p. 734) reads: