The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.131

v1.c10.131

**Coiffure :** Next to clothing for the body, the arrangement of the hair or the decoration of the head, forms the most important element of dress. It has in all ages and in every state of society engaged particular attention, and among savages has often had precedence of most other modes of ornamenting the person. With females, it has been a subject of the most earnest solicitude and the extravagance to which they have been led in this respect under the fascinating sway of fashion, has often been made the subject of the satire of unpitying ridicule, and severe reproof. But the lashings of the wit and the anathemas of the moralist, have invariably proved too weak to set the hair of the head, the loveliest ornament bestowed by nature on the human form, free of unnatural restraints and the most grotesque disfigurements. The glossy ringlets of a young lady drooping gracefully in their native luxuriance, is a style too genuinely beautiful and natural to be let alone by art; and in their place, therefore, the fair sex has everywhere resorted to the most extraordinary, the most extravagant, and the most fantastic contrasts conceivable. In Europe braids and plaits steeped in oils, pastes and pomades, or the tower, the commode, and the chignon of outlandish piles of borrowed hair powdered and curled and bolstered up with bows and pads and basket frames, have always reigned in some form or other; and in India they seem to have exercised their potent sway with no less vigour and influence. Even in the early days of the *Ṛgveda*, the arrangement of the hair was a subject of concern, and peculiarities were often noted. Thus, Rudra is praised as having braided hair (*Kapardin*).⁷⁸ Puṣā, in the same way, has a braid on his head,⁷⁹ and the epithet, is, likewise, applied to the Tritsus.⁸⁰ In the tenth Maṇḍala, a young female, handsome and brilliant, is said to wear four of these braids. “*Catuṣkapardā yuvatiḥ supeśā ghṛta-pratīkā vayunāni vaste*”, and in VII. 33.1, the priests of the family of Vaśiṣṭha are said to wear four of these braids”.⁸¹ The *Rāmāyaṇa* and the *Mahābhārata* contain frequent notices of the braid, and of the neglect of the coiffure as a mark of grief or violent excitement. Draupadī, when insulted by Duḥśāsana in open court, resolved never again to dress her hair until Bhīma should keep his promise, and tie it up with his hands reeking in the blood of the offender, and had her resolution carried out after the lapse of thirteen years. According to the *Rāmāyaṇa*, a single braid was the most [**93**] approp-