The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.110

v1.c9.110

**Forehead:** According to the authority quoted above, men with low foreheads are always prone to cruel acts, and fit only to be exterminated. Very high protuberant foreheads are equally condemned;⁴² in women especially so. A woman, who has a high protuberant forehead and serrated teeth, is sure, says an old adage, to lose her husband on the night of her wedding.⁴³ Nevertheless the leaning is in favor of high foreheads. According to the *Garuḍa Purāṇa*, a forehead of medium size, somewhat protuberant, and shaped like a half moon, the upper arch being formed by the hair of the head, and the lower by the eyebrows, is the most appropriate.⁴⁴ The *Sāmudrika* is not satisfied with this, and expresses its liking for a good, broad, prominent forehead, condemning the narrow-headed to an early death.⁴⁵ In men of mature age a high broad forehead, is generally preferred, and this is what is common in sculpture, both for men and women; and in ordinary Uriyā life, this is not unoften heightened by the hair being combed backward, so as to expose the roots of the frontal hair, i.e., in the "Alexandrine style", which Plutarch characterises by the words, *anastolentes Komes* or "a pushing back of the hair". Neither the *tenui fronte* of Horace, which the old commentators explain to be "a narrow and small forehead which is usually commended in a beautiful form"⁴⁶ nor the *frons brevis* of Martial, has a place in any of the more finished statues of Orissa. The arching of the reflexed hair above the forehead, help to improve the oval form of the face; and the advantage of it may be perceived by comparing it with heads, in which the hair is allowed to hang in front and cause the face to appear rounded.