India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c9.s2.14

c9.s2.14

(6) WEAVER. The word *tantuvāya* is implied in the *sūtra*, *Śilpini chākṛiñaḥ* (VI.2.76). The place where the weaver plied his loom is referred to as *āvāya* (*āvayanti asmin*, III.3. 122), the loom as *tantra* (V.2.70), and the shuttle as *pravāṇi* (V.4.160; *tantuvāya-śalākā*, *Kāśikā*). The process of weaving comprised stretching the warp and then weaving threads across it with a shuttle (cf. *Bhāshya*, *āstīrṇaṁ tantram, protaṁ tantram*, I.338). Pāṇini refers to a piece of cloth or blanket fresh from the loom as *tantraka* (*Tantrād-achirāpahṛite*, V.2.70), meaning a new (*navaka*) unbleached piece; and also *nishpravāṇi*, ‘separated from the shuttle as a mark of the weaving being completed’ (V.4.160, *apanīta-śalākaḥ samāptavānaḥ, Kāśikā*).