In the odes describing bull-baiting, and in the other odes written in the form of dialogues between heroines and their companions, or between suitors and the maidens to whom they made their advances, occur significant similes and descriptions of Nature. The pastoral people were divided, to be exact, into buffalo-herds, cowherds, and shepherds according as they reared buffaloes or cows or sheep. Garlands of the regional flowers are indispensable ornaments even at the time of bullfighting. The victors and their maids dance to the tune of the flute in the sand-strewn groves and the sandy beds of rivers round which mullai abounds, and render thanks to Tirumaal, the god of their region, and pray for the welfare of their king.^"32

Though some of the kali odes are erotic, there are many in which grace and delicacy of expression prevail. A young maid wishes to express her preference for a certain cowherd. She does so indirectly to her companion that she might inform her parents and thus avert her being married to someone else: "You know the angry bull that by its horn took the mullai garland off the head of a cowherd. Because of its incessant tossing, the flowers mostly fell on my head. Suppose my mother heard of how I re-made the garland, and that it originally belonged to another, what would she say?" The meaning that she wishes to convey is she has virtually accepted a garland from a cowherd, and it would be contrary to decency to be married to any other man.³³

The following account by a shepherdess is not without a note of humour. She had received a garland from her clandestine lover which she wore as a chaplet around her hair. While helping in the household work, the flowers fell off her hair in the presence of her parents and thus betrayed her hidden courtship. She compares herself to the drunkard whose reeling walk openly reveals the drinks he has had in private. The incident was not commented upon by the parents. How-

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   ³²Kali; 103, 75 ff. See J. Hutton, Caste in India, 3rd ed. Madras, 1961, p. 152, for connections of this sport with Crete and Provence; and E.Thurston, "Maravar" Castes and Tribes.

   ³³Kali; 107.