India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c8.s6.t2.5

c8.s6.t2.5

The practice of designating cooks on the basis of their capacity to cook a particular measure or quantity of food is referred to in *sūtra* V.¹.52. This may have been a criterion to determine their wages and fitness for employment in domestic and festive cooking. Pāṇini speaks of cooks handling different quantities of food-stuffs, equal to an *āḍhaka*, *āchita* or *pātra* measure (V.1.53). Kātyāyana in a special *vārttika* refers to the cooking of a *droṇa*-measure, from which a female cook competent to handle this quantity was known as *drauṇī* or *drauṇikī* (V.1.52; II.352). There were also female cooks handling larger quantities like two *āḍhakas*, and named *dvyāḍhakī*, *dvyāḍakikī*, *dvyāḍhakinā* (V.1.55; II.352). The popularity of these epithets is seen from another rule in which Pāṇini gives as many as four variant froms for designating one who could cook a couple of *kulija* measures, *e.g.* *dvikulijikī* *dvikulijīnā*, *dvikulijā*, *dvaikulijikī* (V.¹.55).