Double entendre 4: The pestle

One of the oldest, simplest, most useful and universal household utensil sets known to the human race is the mortar and pestle called उलूखल, ulUkhala, and मुषल, muSala, respectively, in Sanskrit. It comes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and materials, and is generally used by housewives to grind culinary herbs and grains, and by traditional healers for their medicinal preparations. In fact, so great was the importance of the pestle in the life of some poets of the Subcontinent that there is an entire chapter in the ancient Prakrit anthology Vajjalaggam dedicated to it, unless of course you read between the lines. 

Maharashtri Prakrit text in the Devanagari script:

चन्दणवलियं दिढकञ्चिबन्धणं दीहरं सुपरिमाणं|
होइ घरे साहीणं मुसलं धन्नाणं महिलाणं||

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

candaNavaliyaM diDhakaJcibandhaNaM dIharaM suparimANaM|
ho-i ghare sAhINaM musalaM dhannANaM mahilANaM||

– Anonymous

Sanskrit translation in the Devanagari script:

चन्दनवलितं दृढकाञ्चीबन्धनं दीर्घं सुपरिमाणं|
भवति गृहे स्वाधीनं मुषलं धन्यानां महिलानाम्||

– रत्नदेव

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

candanavalitaM dRDhakAJcIbandhanaM dIrghaM suparimANaM|

bhavati gRhe svAdhInaM muSalaM dhanyAnAM mahilAnaM||

– ratnadeva

Loose translation: Fortunate is the woman who has in her house a long pestle of excellent girth, smeared with sandalwood paste, and tightly ringed with a girdle (kaNcI; काञ्ची), under her control.

Source: Vajjalaggam Verse 538, the first quote in the musalavajjA (मुसलवज्जा), "the chapter on the pestle". This compendium is a veritable treasure trove of slang, risqué puns, and innuendos from a bygone era.

Notes: Sandalwood paste has been used in South Asia since antiquity as a cooling and aromatic unguent, and of course for ritual markings; the above verse suggests that it was used not just on the body but also on kitchen tools such as pestles (presumably to mask the pungent odors the latter acquired from the spices they were used to grind). 

काञ्ची (kaNcI) usually refers to a girdle that adorns the waist of a woman or a child. What can be inferred from the quoted snippet is that this word was also applied to a similar ornament for pestles (perhaps the larger ones) as well as to a decorative (or probably climax-delaying) device used by men. Quite understandably, definitive information on such topics is hard to come by.

This is one of the extremely rare examples of the objectification of the male body in ancient Indic literature.