A little cloth
wrapped around the base of a chillum, a clay cylinder used to smoke a tobacco
and hashish combination (charas).
The safai has two functions, one liturgical and the other
bodily.
On the one hand, it acts as a barrier to prevent the ritual
impurity (ashaucha) carried by saliva from being conveyed from person to person
when the chillum is handed.
Before smoking, ascetics who are concerned about their
purity or status may often tie their own safai around the base of the chillum.
The safai has a functional purpose in addition to protecting
personal purity: it is frequently bathed in water before being wrapped around
the chillum, which cools and mellows the smoke pulled through it.
