________________
(xci)
means of a silken string passed through eye-let holes (731). They had rings and ear-ornaments (Karṇapūra), a crestjewel (Cuḍāmani) as also a golden girdle with bells on the waist to hold fast the lower garment. They also made use of floral decorations of Kunda, Bakula or Kadamba flowers with Damanaka or Marubaka nosegays. For their toilet and makeup, sandal paste or saffron was used, the face being beautified with 'a line of black musk-dots' (G. 785). The hair was arranged in braids, falling over the back (paṭṭhiveni) and the betel (tāmbula) coloured their lips, while the cheeks became pink with the intoxication of wine (dara-cakkhia-madirā) taken by them. Such was the city life.
39
The Poet seems to have great fondness for villages, nestling under the shelter and shadow of high mountains. They had, on their outskirts thick forests, infested by the herds of elephants, boars, lions, jackals, deer etc, and big lakes, rivers or mountain-rivulets on their flanks. Marshes, pasture-lands with cattle grazing on them, women combing the areas round about to collect dried cow-dung cakes for fuel, houses of good timber with thatched roofs, granaries (kusula) smelling in the heat of summer, roads full of dust rising up in the air as herds of cows return from adjoining forests in the evening, cowherdesses singing their way back to their homes in villages, are some of the outstanding features of the village life. The festivals were a source of joy to the villagers "when children are adorned, when the women feel proud at the newly dyed saris which they wear." There is a pointed reference in the Poem to the cheeks of a young Dravidian woman, painted with turmeric (G. 601). It appears,51
33
66
51. C. V. Vaidya,- History of Medieval Hindu India'. P. 74.
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