The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.245

v1.c10.245

**Furniture and Domestic Utensils. Bedsteads:** The most prominent characteristic of the Indian mode of living has always been extreme simplicity. It is not remarkable, therefore, that there should be wanting traces of any great variety of furniture and domestic utensils among them. The four-poster was probably never known, and of almirahs, chests-of-drawers, and the like, there are no names in the Sanskrit language. The bedstead of the ancient Uriyās was ordinarily like the ancient Egyptian and modern Indian *cārpoy*—a rope matting stretched on a simple frame of wood supported on four legs. For men of consequence and wealth, the matting was replaced by tape, (*pālaṅg*), or boards, (*takhtapoṣ*), the frame-work set off with mouldings and carved work, and the legs cut into various shapes. According to the *Bṛhat Saṁhitā*, which dates from the middle of the sixth century, the woods most esteemed for bedsteads were those of the *Asana* (*āsan, Pentaptera tomentosa*), *Syandana* (*Dalbergia ougeinensis*), *Candana* (sandal wood, *Pterocarpus santalinus*), *Haridrā* (*Mesua ferrea*), *Suradāru* (deodar pine, *Pinus deodāru*), *Tinduki* (a kind of ebony, *Diosperos glutinosa*) *Śāla* (*Shorea rodusta*), *Kāsmari gambhār, Gmelina arborea*), *Añjana* (*Michaelea campaka*), *Padmaka* (?) *Sāla* (teak *Tectonagrandis*), and *Śiṅśapā* (*śiśu, Dalbergea sisu*).¹¹² These include some of the best timber-producing trees of India; the wood of most of these trees is hard, close-grained, susceptible of a good polish, and in every way well adapted for cabinet work. The value of sandal, ebony, teak, *śiśu* and *gambhār* for such purposes is too well known to need iteration; the last is particularly esteemed for the fabrication of the sounding-boards of musical instruments. It is worthy of note, however, that the list does not include the toon, which now-a-days is so extensively employed in furniture-making. The *Śilpa Śāstra* and some of the Purāṇas give detailed directions for felling these trees at particular seasons when the circulation of the sap has stopped, and for seasoning the wood afterwards so as to prevent unequal contractions and cracks in drying. Trees, which have been struck by lightning, or knocked down by inundations, storms or elephants, or which have fallen towards the south side, as well as those which grow on burial, burning or consecrated grounds, or at the confluence of large rivers, or by the roadside, also those which have withered tops, or an entanglement of heavy creepers on them, or bear thorns, or are the receptacles of many honey-combs and birds' nests, are reckoned unfit for the fabrication of bedsteads, as they are inauspicious, and are sure to bring on misfortune, disease and death.¹¹³ Some of the woods commended are supposed to be most propitious when used singly, such as the *gambhār*, the *āsan*, the *śiśu* and the sandal; others may be used single or jointly, such as the teak and the *śāl*, and the *haridrā* and the *kadamba*;