The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.137

Language: English

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**Dressing of the Hair in Sculpture :** Manu lays down rules for tonsure, and the different modes of arranging the hair on the crown of the head proper for different orders of the people.^83 Later Sanskrit authors are profuse in their praises of the various forms of coiffure in vogue in their times ; but their descriptions are not precise, and it is not always easy to make out the forms they allude to. This is, however, not much to be regretted, as the available sculptural evidence on the subject is ample. The artists of Orissa seem to have paid particular attention to the subject, and their works represent the dressing of hair and head-dresses in great variety. The specimens shown in Illustrations Nos. 95 to 110, will convey some idea of the forms which the Uriyās, twelve hundred years ago, thought the most attractive and elegant. The simplest and most natural of these was the chignon represented in No. 95, taken from the Great Tower of Bhuvaneśvara. It occurs on a great number of heads, and is generally ornamented with a shield-like boss of gold on the coil, and three double strings of pearls or gold chains on the head. It still prevails in Orissa and in some parts of the Southern Presidency, where the dancing girls seem particularly attached to it. From its bulk, it is evident that some padding, or stuffing, or a profuse admixture of false, or borrowed, hair was used to swell it out.

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In the present day, bits of rag or braided strings of false hair are the stuffings commonly resorted to. No. 96., from the Temple of Mukteśvara, offers a variety of this form in which the ornaments are replaced by a single string of pearl encircling the head like a fillet, and the chignon proper has two gradually receding tiers of hair placed over it. In front two thick locks made to curl upwards on the temples. On the Great Tower, several male heads have the same style of chignon, but without the curls. The next most common form is shewn in No. 97. It resembles the modern European chignon as copied in No. 98 from a plate of Parisian fashions in the *Illustrated London News* for 1867, so closely in its make and outline, that little need be said to describe it. It is worthy of remark, however, as affording a notable instance of how fashion repeats itself even under such dissimilar circumstances as those of Orissa in 667 and of Europe in 1867 A. D., and how little taste as regards chignons in the boudoirs of Paris in the present day, differs from that of the belles of Cuttack twelve hundred years ago. A form very similar to it was in vogue in Bengal in the last century ; but it has been altogether discarded now. Some male figures at Bhuvaneśvara have head-dresses of a similar, but not exactly the same, form. The chignon of Annapūrṇā at Mukteśvara (Illustration No. 83 ), is peculiar and seems to have been uncommon.

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There are some loose curls on the left temple, the counterparts of which are not to be seen on the opposite side. The style shewn in No. 99 was common enough. Its great peculiarity is, that the chignon, instead of being placed behind the head, is brought to the left side, and made to rest on the shoulder. It is tied across by a jewelled band having a pendant star on each side. A fringe of short hair covers the upper part of the forehead, and upon it is set a triangular tiara of jewels. In the *Ṛgveda* the descendants of Vaśiṣṭha are described as wearing their chignons sideways, but in their case the right side was preferred.⁸⁴ In the present day many Europeans must have noticed Madrasi *āyāhs* with their coil of hair on the left side, and the dancing girls of Oudh, until very recently, patronised the same fashion. Illustration No. 102 exhibits a modification of this style. The hair in it is parted into two coils, and placed on the two sides, leaving the occiput flat. This is common both to men and women. In Illustration No. 103, the true chignon disappears, and is replaced by a fantastic cone curling and twisting upwards behind the head; and the form is further modified in No. 100, in which the hair is tied by a jewelled band two or three inches from the back of the head, and then braided into an enormous ball about two-thirds the size of the head.

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To preserve these coiffures undisturbed, the ladies who patronised them, must have abjured reclining as long as it was necessary to keep them in position.