The Sahitya-Darpana refers to it. ‘ If a woman of a respectable family is desirous of meeting her lover, she can do so by crouching (literally melted or absorbed into her own limbs-making herself as small as possible) with all her (tinkling) ornaments silenced, and covering herself with an Avagunthana'. 23

In the fifth Act of Abijnana Sakuntalam, the heroine comes to the court, accompanied by two hermits. She comes with her Avagunthana on. The king expresses his admiration thus:‘ Who could she be, with a veil and with the gloss of her body not fully manifested, standing in the midst of anchorites, like a tender sprout lit the midst of scarred leaves?"

In the above stanza the word Avagunthana means more than a veil of the face. It was an outer garment loosely covering her form hence the beauty of her figure wits partly hidden from view. It is thus clear, from the survey of the literature contemporaneous with early law-books, that one of the important changes forcing its way into society, was the seclusion of women.