India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c9.s2.20

c9.s2.20

(7) *BLANKET-MAKERS* (*kambala-kāraka*, cf. Vālmīki, II.83.14). Woollen goods were called *aurṇa* and *aurṇaka* (IV.3.158). Pāṇini mentions several kinds of blankets, *viz.*, (1) *prāvāra* (III;3.54), (2) *pāṇḍu-kambala* (IV.2.11), and (3) *paṇyakambala* (VI.2.42; to which Kātyāyana adds *varṇaka* (VII.3.45; cf. Kauṭilya, II.11, p. 80), and the *Kāśikā rāṅkava* (IV.2.100, a counter-example to the *sūtra*). *Paṇyakambala* (VI.2.42) was a blanket of commercial variety of standard length and breath, being woven with a fixed measure of wool called *kambalya* by Pāṇini (IV.1.22, *Kambalāch-cha saṁjñāyām*), equal to 100 *palas* or 5 seers in weight (*Kāśikā*). *Prāvāra* was a special variety of light woollen covering woven on the loom (cf. *tantraka prāvāra*, V.2.70).