The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.300

v1.c10.300

Another material which was used in the manufacture of domestic vessels was leather. In the time of the *Ṛgveda* leather *maśaks* for water were well known, and Indra is praised as piercing the rain-confining skins or *maśaks* of the clouds.¹⁴⁵ Bottles of the same material also were evidently in common use, for Agastya in his poison-neutralizing *mantra* says “ I deposit the poison in the solar orb, like a leather bottle in the house of a vendor of spirits”.¹⁴⁶ In the *Laws of Manu*, *maśaks* for water are alluded to under the name of *dṛti*, and its peculiar form with the four feet left intact is pointed out. ¹⁴⁷ Directions are also given for the purification of leather articles.¹⁴⁸ Other Smṛtis ordain that oleaginous articles preserved in leather bottles do not become impure by the contact of the impure cow-hide ; and in the present day jars of that material are in extensive use in Bengal and the North-West Provinces for the storage of oil and ghi. In the latter place, leather bags are universally [ 112 ] used for raising water from wells, and according to the law books of Śaṅkha and Likhita,¹⁴⁹ that water is declared pure which is kept in old leather bottles. Atri ¹⁵⁰ is likewise of the same opinion, and adds that flowing water, and that which is raised by machinery, are not defiled. The use of such words, as *carmaṇta*, *carmapaṭṭi*, *vāratra*, *caṣa-bandha*, &c., in old Sanskrit works indicates that straps, bands and strings of leather were in common use, and sails were also made of leather or hide. No articles of the kind, however, have been seen at Bhuvanesvara. In the boat scene at Sāñcī, leather *maśaks* are used for swimming,¹⁵¹ and their counterparts may be seen in Layard’s plates of Assyrian sculptures.¹⁵² Of leather bottles and jars no trace can be found in sculpture, but a remarkable article, probably of leather, occurs on an attendant on a lady of rank from Bhuvaneśvara now in the Museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal; it is a courier bag of a check pattern with a flap, slung from his left shoulder. (Woodcut No. 51.) I have seen nothing of the kind in any other sculpture in India.