hair's colour in sanskrit

[Allen Thrasher]

On Fri, 9 May 1997, Lars Martin Fosse wrote:
> 
> There is a similar problem with Greek colours. The only way to know, is when
> colour terms are referred to natural phenomena that haven't changed since
> ancient times. E.g. white may be referred to the egg of a hen, red to a
> given kind of red berries, brown to soil etc. 

Brown referring to soil is a much less felicitous example than the other
two.  Soils can also be (in American English) black, yellow, etc.  In much
of my state of Virginia it is a beautiful red.  And in countries which
have undergone intensive agriculture for many centuries one can't assume
the soil's color is the same as it was in the time of some classic
literature.


Allen Thrasher