________________
228
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[AUGUST, 1911.
with crowds of buyers of all castes; dramtuers announced festivities; elephants, horses, cars, and soldiers often moved to and fro; young and old women carried flowers, garlands, flower-dusts, betel leaves, lime and the like from house to house; hawkers soll various articles ; soldiers wearing clothes with flower worke, swords in their belts, todi on their feet, garlands of vêm bu and Sengalunir flowers round their chests, rode on the backs of swift-footed horses. Women of high rank and great beauty adorned themselves with gold jewels and flowered bangles, gathered together on the open front yard of the upper storeys of their houses and witnessed the festivities, processions and other amusements in the streets.
The Bauddha ladies accompanied by their husbands and children carried flower and incense to their temples for worship. Some of the Brâhmaņs chanted the Vedas, others performed yaiii, while a few of great religious merit enjoyed a life of bliss dwelling as they did in caves. The Srdvakas (Jainas) of austere devotion, knowing all the times and what passel in the three worlds, flocked in large numbers in their temples with painted walls, carrying in hanging strings, the kandigai and flowers.
There were the merchants, who led the life of householders, and dealt in gold, jewels, pearle and articles of foreign import; those who cut conches and made bangles from them ; who bored holes on precious stones, made beantiful gold ornaments, tested the carats of gold, gold cloths, flower and sandal paste and drew charming pictures. The weavers of cloths, young and old, crowded thickly in all the four quarters of the city. The volume of sound raised by these was something similar to that which usually accompanied the landing at miilnight of the ships from foreign countries with rich cargo which they emptied and took back other articles mannfactured in the country.
Feeding houses there were, where jack, mango, and other kinds of unripe and ripe fruits, flesh mixed with rice, roots and sugar were nicely cooked and served.
When the busy day closed and the evening approached, women anxious to meet their beloved, gathered Sengalunir flowers to make garlands, adorned themselves with jewels, scented their long hair with fragrant oils, prepared pastes of musks and sandal, perfumed their clothes with fragrant smokes of sandal, lightel the lamps, played on the ya!24 and enjoyed the night with their lovers in the first quarter of it and went to rest. The married women of the household, following the ways of elderly ladies who were mothers of children, went out in the evening gently and bashfully, bathed in the tanks, offered flowers and rice (nicely cooked in milk) to the gods and prayed for good children. They were celebrated for their high morality. Their ears were adorned with kulai, their hands with todi and several other jewels, their Angers with gold rings set with precious stones and round their necks they had garlands of flowers anil pearls. They were dressed in bright and
24 One of the oldest stringed musioal instruments of Southern India was the yal. Choloest materials appear to have been used in its making. The rule for the selection of a sounding board to it, was that no wood that had grows in water, that was rotting or that was not deep-rooted should be chosen. It shonld preferably be of such strong materiale as the ebony, casia, gmealina tomontos, etc. Several kinds of y&l are mentioned in Tamil works. Chief among them are (1) Periya, (2) Magara-ya?, (3) Sagaida-yal and (4) Sengotfi-yal. The first of these had 21 stringe, the second 17, the third 13, and the fourth 7. Frequent twinkling of the eye, koitting the brow, allowing the neck to tremblo or to swell, shaking the cheeks, displaying the teeth, opening the mouth wide, nodding the head and similar other movements of the body are considered as faults in a person who sings with the aid of the ya! There were export players on this instrument in the courts of the ancient Dravidian kings. Some of the big temples of Southarn Ladis employed them and their services were utilized in singing the hymns composed on god, to the accompaniment of vocal maslo. References to the yol are frequently met with in the Derdram. One of the greatest musicians who fourished in the middle of the 7th century A.D., was the Baiva devotee. Tirant Lakandu-Perumbapar. H. belonged to the Tanjore district. Another is mentioned in the Haldayamahalnya. Ho wus native of Madars and distingaished himself in the reign of an ancient Pandya king. There are references in Tamit literature of thomme period u Maduraikkanchi which go to show that the yal is either a slight modification of or identically the same as the vfq. Both men and women appear to have amused themselves by playing on the instrument.
