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Eternal India
encyclopedia
LIFESTYLES
LIFESTYLES: VEDIC AND LATER TIMES
CLOTHES AND JEWELLERY
Herodotus, the Greek historian of the 5th century B.C., in
his observations on India, commented that "certain wild trees
there bear wool instead of fruit, that in beauty and quality excels
that of sheep, and the Indians make their clothing from these
trees."
Herodotus was referring to cotton. The ancient Indians were
the first to discover its uses and weave it into cloth. Cotton
as the common material for dress was in use in the pre-historic
Indus Valley Civilisation of Mohenjodaro and Harappa (2300
B.C.) and it was extensively exported.
Silk, a Chinese invention, was probably known in India as
an imported product in the 3rd or 2nd century B.C. But it may
have reached India in substantial quantities only between the
1st and 4th centuries A.D. on its way to the Roman Empire
in its heyday on the Great Silk Route from China. By the 6th
and 7th centuries, silk was being produced in India and it was
used by the aristocracy and the rich.
The men and women of ancient India wore one piece of
unstitched garment. It was a plain length of cloth, sometimes
decorated with coloured stripes, which they wound round their
waist. Sometimes the end in front was gathered between the
legs and pulled to the back, with the end being tucked into the
waistband.
Soldiers in the army wore tailored and sewn coats. Foreign
court employees, foreigners who were employed as domestic
servants and visiting dancing teams wore upper garments to
cover their breasts. But the native Indians, men and women, in
ordinary walks of life, did not wear any upper garments to cover
their breasts.
However, a scarf or shawl was frequently worn as a head
covering which was thrown across the back of the neck and
passed over the arm. In northern India during winter the shawl
was made of thick material and was used by men and women
to wrap themselves up in to keep out the cold.
It has been argued by some scholars that, while in painting
and sculpture in ancient India women are depicted as naked
to the waist, in real life this was not so.
Charles Fabri, the art historian, in his book
"A History of
Indian Dress"
comments: "It is difficult to believe for most
Indians of today that Indian women of all classes went about
bare from the waist upwards (as do the Balinese) for many
hundreds of years; nevertheless, this is a fact that shouts from
thousands and tens of thousands of sculptures and paintings.
The evidence is not only overwhelming, it is absolutely
conclusive. Anyone with eyes can see that in the whole history
of Indian art, from the earliest' times to approximately the 12th
century A.D. women are invariably shown (with the sole
exception of foreign fashions at one period) as wearing no
garment to cover their breasts.
"The suggestion has been made by Indian scholars of today,
brought up in very different traditions of propriety and decorum,
that this is nothing but an artistic convention. Their argument
runs like this: the Greeks also depicted their women in the nude,
yet it is not accepted that Greek women went about completely
undraped;
ergo
, Indian women must have worn upper garments.
"As will be evident to Western readers, this argument does
not hold good at all. The Greeks, like many other people, no
doubt depicted the nude with relish, but we have thousands of
other illustrations of every style of dress worn at various times
by all classes of Greeks, men and women. Detailed histories
of ancient Greek costume are available, based on thousands of
documents. But in ancient Indian art all women are usually
shown with a bare upper body - villagers, townswomen, queens,
housewives, milkmaids and the rest."
The same author maintains that although the word
sari
occurs in ancient texts, it is different from the garment which
is in common use today. "Litterateurs who find the word
sari
in the poignant description in the
Mahabharata
of how Draupadi
was put to shame, must not think that she wore a
sari
as we
know it today, covering her hips, thrown over one shoulder and
allowed to fall back over the other. There is not the remotest
doubt that Draupadi wore a small piece of cloth, called
sari,
wrapped round her waist only, and no upper garment, and when
that
sari
was snatched from her hips, it was indeed, a shameful
act of male brutality. That kind of
sari
could best be called a
dhoti
(as sometimes it is called in the India of today) or even
a
sarong,
a Malay word, presumably borrowed from the Sanskrit
and given the typical Malay ending -
ong.”
Indian attire underwent a change with the Islamic invasions.
Men adopted a variation of the buttoned coat of the Mughals
while women wore a three piece costume: the skirt (
ghaghra
),
the bodice (
choli
) and the head-kerchief (
orhni or duppata).
The modem
sari
was developed in the 18th century.
If clothes were simple and uncomplicated in ancient times,
it was not so with jewellery. Gold, silver and precious stones
were in great demand. Earrings were worn by both sexes while
women decked themselves in bangles, necklaces, pendants,
anklets, armlets and moon-shaped breast ornaments of chased
gold and silver.
FOOD AND DRINK
In Vedic times parched grain, cakes, milk and its various
products such as curd, butter and ghee, vegetables and fruits
constituted the daily fare of the household. Animal food was
eaten especially at feasts and family gatherings. The
Arthasastra
of Kautilya, the Minister of Chandragupta Maurya
(321 B.C), lays down rules for the management of slaughter
houses and standards for the purity of meat. The cow, how-
ever, was venerated and its slaying was looked upon with
disfavour.
The fowl, which was domesticated in pre-historic India and
introduced to the world, probably figured in the menu although
its eggs did not form part of the diet. The peacock was used
as food and it was the favourite dish of the Maury an Emperor
Ashoka (273-232 B.C.) until he became a vegetarian after
embracing Buddhism. He also issued an edict against the killing
of animals.