The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.67

v1.c10.67

The diminutive of the *kañcuka* is *kañculikā*, and it is universally known to be a cloth bodice, and all respectable women and even goddesses are said to have worn it. Its modern name is *kāñculī*, and it is in common use all over India except among family women in Bengal. Over it is worn a thin, light jacket reaching to the waist, with sleeves to the elbows. This is called an *āngiā*, Hindi *kurtā*. To those who know the Prakrit language, this will at once appear to be a corruption of the Sanskrit *aṅgika*, the K being, by a well-known rule, changed into A. It is probable that the male jacket *aṅgarkhā* of the present day is a modification of the same word, unless it be a corruption of *aṅga*, body and *rakṣā*, protection. In Wilson’s *Dictionary* the word *cola* is explained as “a short jacket or bodice”; but it was more like a waistcoat, something closely resembling a *fatui*, or *sadri* of the Mahommedans, for Indian tailors still call the *torso* or the body part of a coat *colā*, and its appendages *āstin*, sleeve, and *dāman*, skirts, and the Sanskrit *colaka* is explained to be a breast-plate.