History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c32.s2.t9.8

v1.c32.s2.t9.8

In the *Silappadikāram*, the poet Ilango Adigal, while giving a detailed account of the Kaveri describes the modes or devices, particularly the bucket, the water-lifts and palm-leaf baskets. In the tenth canto of the work it is thus described: “By finding her (Kaveri) movement arrested by the barrier - the anticut with its doorway - she noisily leaps beyond it in the sportive mood natural to her first freshes. No sound other than this can be heard. We can hear neither the sound of the bucket nor of the water-lift; neither the usually loud, *picotah* nor the palm-leaf bucket used in irrigation” (*Silappadikāram*, X. 107-119; see Ramchandra Dikshitar, Eng, tr. p. 161).