[18] A colour made from lac.
[19] This would act instead of soap, which was not introduced until the rule of the Mahomedans.
[20] Ten days are allowed when the hair is taken out with a pair of pincers.
[21] These are characters generally introduced in the Hindoo drama; their characteristics will be explained further on.
[22] Noonday sleep is only allowed in summer, when the nights are short.
[23] These are very common in all parts of India.
[24] In the 'Asiatic Miscellany,' and in Sir W. Jones's works, will be found a spirited hymn addressed to this goddess, who is adored as the patroness of the fine arts, especially of music and rhetoric, as the inventress of the Sanscrit language, &c., &c. She is the goddess of harmony, eloquence, and language, and is somewhat analogous to Minerva. For further information about her, see Edward Moor's 'Hindoo Pantheon.'
[25] The public women, or courtesans (Vesya), of the early Hindoos have often been compared with the Hetera of the Greeks. The subject is dealt with at some length in H. H. Wilson's 'Select Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindoos,' in two volumes, Trubner & Co., 1871. It may be fairly considered that the courtesan was one of the elements, and an important element too, of early Hindoo society, and that her education and intellect were both superior to that of the women of the household. Wilson says, "By the Vesya or courtesan, however, we are not to understand a female who has disregarded the obligation of law or the precepts of virtue, but a character reared by a state of manners unfriendly to the admission of wedded females into society, and opening it only at the expense of reputation to women who were trained for association with men by personal and mental acquirements to which the matron was a stranger."
[26] According to this description a Pithamarda would be a sort of professor of all the arts, and as such received as the friend and confidant of the citizens.
[27] A seat in the form of the letter T.