sAri, the Indian dress

[RM.Krishnan]

At 12/10/99 5:04:00 AM, you wrote:
>Dear Thiru. LS,
>
>Thanks for pointing out the "sky garment" in Parpola.
>Tamil has "tAr" for both a) flower mAlA and b) weapon, army;
>tAr-kANittal = bestowing authority/title (like kaN-kANi).
>tAr =garland/weapon may fit the priest-king's dress(tArpya).
>
>Dr. Witzel in his Sep. '99 EJVS paper has pointed out several
>k and s/z word-initial variants in foreign loan words:
>eg., kambala/zambara, kabara/zabara, kIsta/zISTa, kimIdin/zimIdaa,
>kambu/zambu, kirAta/cilAta, etc., Dr. Southworth has suggested
>Dr. *kIndu > sindhu river (Erdosy, 1994).
>
>If this k/s/z alterations are admissible, then several words
>can be looked into. As a pointer, I talked of two words.
>1) dr. kalkoTa > zarkoTa nAgam (karkoTa dynasty, 600 AD)
>and 2) kATi > zATI. For zATI, tamil kAzh, kAzhakam must also be
>looked into. Anyway, these are just possibilities if the
>k => z/s changes are ok in Sanskrit.
>
>Thanks & Warm regards,
>N. Ganesan
>
Perhaps a word origin with a direct meaning could be considered here,viz., Tamil verb 'cAttutal.'

This verb is used even today for covering and tying around the temple deity with open ended garments (like
saree/dhoti) and also with flowers. Any flower or even poetical offering is also referred to by the same verb.

But the basic meaning is related to open ended garments only. Any garment which is wound over a person would be
referred to with this verb. The etymolgy for this garment could have been  cAttu>cAtti>cAti>cAdi>zAdi>zAri.

There is another related word 'cAttiyam' - it means 'one can possibly tie up and complete'. In Tamil 'possibility for
ending up' is also referred as 'possibility for tying up'. We can look at the similarity in meaning of the words 'cAttu' and
'cAttiyam'

Another word commonly used on wearing a zAri is 'muTital' - again it means 'tying up'. The whole crux of wearing a
zAri is to 'tie up', if it should not get loosened up.

In short, the core idea is 'tying;. 'cAttu' precisely means that.

With regards,
RM.Krishnan