Page:Pre-Aryan Tamil Culture.djvu/45

 drains, śākkaḍai, or śālagam'', as were the houses of Mohenjo-daro, recently unearthed. The spout of the drain was tūmbu, puḻal, śuruṅgu. The inside walls were provided with niches, purai, in which were placed, among other things, the lamps to light the house by night. These lamps were little bowls of stone or earthernearthen [sic]-ware, or metal, agal, tagaḷi, tagaḻi, iḍiñjil, pāṇḍil, in which castor oil or other oils were burnt with a cotton wick. Behind the house was another kuṛadu, which was a lumber room. Behind this the house-well, kiṇaṛu, aśumbu, uṛavi, kuḻi, kūval, kūḍam, tuṛavu, kēṇi., [sic] pūval, the latter three being water pits without a protecting structure of wood around them. Behind the well stretched a garden, either a kitchen garden or a fruit tope, ''kollai, tōppu, tōṭṭam, āvalam, tuḍavai, toḍuvu, paḍappai, pāvagam, punam. In the kollai behind the house was the koṭṭil, cattle-shed, koṭṭu, from probably the same word as Telugu goḍḍu, cattle, and il, meaning house. Behind the garden stretched the corn fields, vayal.

The furniture of houses was utensils for polishing and grinding rice and for cooking it in various ways. Ural and ullakkai mortar and pestle, of both wood and stone, pounding stones of several shapes, sometimes the shape of the tortoise or other animals, ammi, tiruvai āṭṭukkal, kuḻavi, mealers of stone, puṭṭil, vaṭṭigai, basket, muṛam, śinnam, suḷagu, taṭṭu, muṛṛil, winnowing fan, sallaḍai, sieve; different forms of pots of earthenware or soft stone, pānai, śaṭṭi, śāl, kuḍam, miḍā, pānā, mallāy, lid for the same, maḍakku; spoons, at first made of wood, and then of iron or other metal, agappai, (of three kinds, taṭṭagappai, sandagappai, śiṛṛagappai, ) śaṭṭuvam, karaṇdi, muṭṭai, tuḍuppu, maravai, marakkāl, or ambaṇam, toṭṭi, kiṇṇam, vaṭṭi, vaṭṭil, flat spoon, all of wood or stone coming down from the stone age and a few of metal since the commencement of the iron age; other household furniture were maṇai, planks for sitting on or shaped logs used as pillows, peṭṭi, pēḻai, mañjikai, box, the stone-age form of which was the kaṭṭuppeṭṭi, a box of wicker work without any metal parts and bound together by means of cocoanut coir, and hence absolutely unpollutable by touch and fit for storing eatables and the Lares and Penates; kaṭṭil, literally bound place, a cot made of bamboos fitted together into an oblong framework bound together with ropes, also called pāṇḍil; literature mentions richer forms of