The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.63

v1.c10.63

**Sanskrit names of made dresses :** As regards the names of made dresses, it is to be observed that the forms of the ancient garments having become obsolete for centuries, their names have likewise fallen into disuse, and what formerly indicated particular forms are now accepted as common terms for dress. There are, nevertheless, some words, the import of which cannot be mistaken, such as *kañcuka*, *kañcolika*, *aṅgika*, *colaka*, *cola*, *kurpāsaka*, *adhikāṅga*, *nīvi*, &c. The most important of these is the first. It is defined as a soldier's dress, shaped like a bodice, a made garment for the body, hanging either as low as the hip or lower down to the legs, i. e., a jacket or a coat. The word *sannāha* used in its definition, ⁴⁰ and which is used for a mail coat, as well as a coat of quilted cotton, has led to its being occasionally confounded with the *varma* or chain-mail, and in some modern dictionaries, it is described as “an iron garment for the protection of the body from arrows”; but that it was formerly made of cloth is evident from its having been used by other than warriors. The sages and hermits, who came to the great coronation feast of Yudhiṣṭhira, are described in the *Mahābhārata* as being dressed in turbans and *kañcukas*,⁴¹ and in their case it would be inconsistent to accept the coat as a hauberk or a cuirass. The immediate, ordinary, everyday attendants on kings, who should always be old, are also said to be so altered, and from various descriptions it would seem that the garment was made of cloth in shape of the well-known Indian *jāmā*. The ordinary term for the eunuchs, who guard the *zanana* of a king, is *kañcukins* or “persons clothed with the *kañcuka*”, and it is not to be believed that they generally moved about in chain-mail, or solid breast-plates. In the *Ratnāvali* of Srīharṣa, a warder of this class offers protection under the folds of its *kañcuka* to a dwarf, who had been frightened out of his wits by a little monkey getting loose from its chains and gambolling about,⁴² and this could not have been possible unless the coat had been of cloth with skirts hanging down close to the ankles. In the present day the flowing forepart of the *dhuti*, which looks very like the folds of the skirt of the *jāmā*, is called *koñcā*. Fair maidens in noble families are said to have, likewise, draped themselves in this garment to heighten their beauty, and it would be absurd to suppose that they used metallic jackets for such a purpose.