Eternal India Encyclopedia

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." 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. The same author maintains that although the word