India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c8.s8.7

c8.s8.7

(4) Cotton (*kārpāsa āchchhādana*, a counter-example to IV.3.143). The word *karpāsī* occurs not in a *sūtra*, but in the *Gaṇa-pāṭha Bilvādi* (IV.3.136), but its reading there must be authentic, as it is the only fabric-denoting word in the *Bilvādi* group, and without it half of Pāṇini's rule IV.3.143 (*abhakshy-āchchhādanayoḥ*) would become redundant. In the chapter, IV.3.136-142, to which the rule IV.3.143 applies, *karpāsī* is the only word denoting cloth-making material.¹ The word *tūla* also occurs in Pāṇini (III.1.25, III.3.64), in a compound like *ishīkā-tūla*.