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246
is used for a number of things, e.g. as a black dye (see Watts III, pp. 284-6). It is therefore foolish of the woman to apply it to her already dark skin (sāmall), the more so as for women a light-coloured skin is favoured, which they try to bring about by using a lotion of turmeric (see 58, 80 and 246). The woman is apparently desparately longing to be touched by the man (cf. *16 in which the woman begs to be touched by the same moonbeams that touch her lover). The Gathā has a counterpart in 246 in which a man is drinking the water of the river mixed with bitter turmeric used by his beloved as a bathing-lotion. In this case, too, it probably concerns a bathing-lotion floating on the water after the man's bath. In any case it is unlikely that he left it behind in some jar on the bank of the river for anybody else to use it. It would seem to appear from this Gāthā that men tried to enhance the blackness of their skins. Note in this connection the following Apá. verse found in Hem. IV 330, which indeed seems to comment favourably on the contrast of the lightness of the woman's skin and the blackness of that of the man:
dhollā sāmala dhan(i)a campavanpT nāi suvannareha kasavatgai dingT.
The dholla is dark, his wife campaka-coloured. It looks like a streak of gold on a (black) touch-stone!
For tūha 'bathing-place' beside Skt tirtha (Pkt tittha), see Mayrhofer, EWA II, p. 507, and Turner, CDIAL 5903. tūha is mentioned in Hem. I 104 and II 72. The variant rūhe in Ma, R and K probably rests on a misreading of the Jaina Nagarī symbol for tu as rū (note Weber's hesitation regarding the reading of Bh, which could be tūhe or rühe; ISt., p. 41). The variant titthe in Tp possibly is an emendation for this ruhe in the source of Tp. See also 58: rūha in R and Ma and tittha in Tp.
For the variant teha in Ma, for taha, see *1.
Other instances of ira (Ma and Tp; cf. suiram in Bh and R) beside kira are found in 499 tassa (vi?) ira in Ma (cf. Hem. II 186: tassa ira, which probably is a quotation) against tassa kira in Tp, V, Y, .T and W
