A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c12.62

c12.62

Among other sports and pastimes, the hunting of dogs and hares, wrestling and boxing matches among warriors are mentioned. Old men engaged in dice-play, and women and girls played with balls and molucca-beans on the terraces of houses. Mixed bathing and picnic parties, children playing in the *manram* and their toy bows and arrows also find casual mention in the poems. Boys and girls bathed together in tanks and rivers. The dancing-girl was often a serious rival to the wife, and the whole plot of the celebrated story of Kōvalan and Kaṇṇagi turns on this rivalry. Like Vātsyāyana's *Kāmasūtra*, the *Maṇimēkalai*, a work of the period after the Śangam, indicates that hetaerae underwent a regular course of instruction extending over a number of years and comprising court dances, popular dances, singing, playing on the lute and flute, cookery, perfumery, painting, flower-work and many other fine arts.