The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.227

v1.c10.227

**Ear Ornaments :** Ornaments for the ears are also exhibited in great variety, but owing to their small size and the rough usage to which the hands, nose and ears most of the statues had been subjected by the Moslem invaders, I have not been able to obtain drawings of a sufficient number of perfect and well-marked specimens. My drawings include representations of only five varieties, but they are characteristic, and will, it is believed, prove interesting. No. 121 is from a female figure in the Great Tower of Bhuvaneśvara. Its drooping plume and fan-like appendage are peculiar, and have been noticed on several male figures. Some times the fan, probably made of party coloured fringed cloth, is surmounted by floating ribbons, (No. 63). The *tālapatra*, or “palm-leaf ear-ornament”, named in the *Amarakoṣa*, was probably no other than this fan. Illustration No. 122 from the same place is worn on the ears, hooked in a hole in the helix or outer rim, or tied to the hair near it. It is still in use on the top or sides of the head, and is known in Bengal, where it is made of jewelled gold plates and strings of pearls, by the name of *jummā*. Illustration No. 120 is called *karṇaphula*, or “the ear-flower”, and has a pretty tulip drop ; it has been taken from a figure of the boar incarnation in a small temple adjoining the Great Tower. The ornament was a great favourite of Durgā and the famous Maṇikarṇikā of Benares derives its name from the circumstance, says the legend, of the goddess having by accident dropped an ornament of this kind at that sacred spot. Illustration No. 118 from the Mārkaṇḍa Tank in Puri is now known in Bengal by the name of *ḍheñḍi*. It is a shield-shaped disk of gold worn on the lobe of the ear, sometimes with, and sometimes without a pendant. Illustration No. 119 from the Great Tower represents two ornaments, tulip drop, hung from the antitragus, and a stud with pearl fringe and pendant, attached to the lower edge of the lobule. Several other forms will be noticed in some of the illustrations attached to this work.