India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c8.s13.t1.13

c8.s13.t1.13

The motif of the woman plucking flowers from a distended bough is met with on the *toraṇas* of Bharhut and Sānchi in the Śuṅga period and is continued on the railing pillars of Mathurā during the Kushāṇa period. It also appears in a limited number of examples in Gandhāra art of the Kushāṇa age, but the weak treatment of the subject there betrays its having been imported from the East. We have in the *Kāśikā* an example of a game played by people of the North known as *Jīva-putra-prachāyikā*.¹ Vātsyāyana in the *Kāmasūtra* mentions as examples of *deśya krīḍās* (local sports) similar names ending in *aka* suffix, *e.g.* *Sahakāra-bhañjikā*, *Abhyūsha-khādikā* (cited by *Kāśikā*, on III.³.109), *Udaka-kshveḍikā*,² *Bisa-khādikā*, *Aśokottaṁsikā*, *Pushpāvachāyikā*, *Chūta-latikā*, *Damana-bhañjikā*, *Ikshu-bhakshikā*, etc.