Dear list members,

I have a question concerning a passage from the Tamil text Kuṟiñcippāṭṭu 189-194. It describes a peacock which has drunk from the juice of a fruit thinking it was water, and got drunk. It is swaying to and fro on the song (pāṇi) which is slowly creeping (ūr) on/along the rope (kayiṟu) of the dancing women. The position of the word for rope is ambiguous: are the dancing women holding a rope or are the notes creeping along the rope? I think the latter. My question is if “rope” (Tamil kayiṟu, Skt rajju) is a technical term from music (or dance). The dictionaries (Tamil Lexicon and Monier-Williams) give no answer.

Kind regards

Herman Tieken