History of Clothing in Vedic and Mauryan period

 

Vedic period

The Vedic period was the time duration between 1500 and 500 BCE. The garments worn in the Vedic period mainly included a single cloth wrapped around the whole body and draped over the shoulder. People used to wear the lower garment called paridhana which was pleated in front and used to tie with a belt called mekhala and an upper garment called uttariya (a covering like a shawl) which they used to remove during summers. "Orthodox males and females usually wore the uttariya by throwing it over the left shoulder only, in the style called upavita". There was another garment called pravara that they used to wear in cold weather. This was the general garb of both the sexes, differing only in size of cloth and manner of wearing. Sometimes the poor people wore the lower garment as a loincloth only, while the wealthy would wear it extending to the feet as a sign of prestige.

In the Rig Veda, mainly three terms were described – adhivastra, kurlra, and andpratidhi – for garments which correspondingly denote the outer cover (veil), a head-ornament or head-dress (turban), and part of woman's dress. Many pieces of evidence are found for ornaments like niska or rukma, which were worn in the ear and around the neck there was a great use of gold beads in necklaces which show that gold was mainly used in jewellery. Rajata-hiranya ('white gold'), also known as silver, was not in that much of use as no evidence of silver is figured out in the Rig Veda.

In the Atharva Veda, garments began to be made of the inner cover, an outer cover, and a chest-cover. Besides kurlra and andpratidhi (which were already mentioned in the Rig Veda), there are other parts, such as nivi, vavri, upavasana, kumba, usnlsa, and tirlta, that also appeared in Atharva Veda, which correspondingly denote underwear, upper garment, veil, and the last three denoting some kinds of head-dress (head-ornament). Also mentioned were updnaha (footwear) and kambala (blanket), mani (jewel) is also mentioned for making ornaments in this Vedic text.

Pre-Mauryan era

Even though scholars have debated the archaeological evidence from the pre-Mauryan era, a lot of terracotta artifacts by various scholars have been dated to the pre-Mauryan era which shows continuity of the dressing styles leading up to the Mauryan period. The terracotta also contain naturalistic style of depicting human faces just like Mauryan periods. The pre-Mauryan periods have been marked by the continuation of Indus arts and depict elaborate headdresses, conical hats with heavy earring. Bronze rattling mirror excavated from Pazyryk dated to the 4th century BCE also depict Indians wearing typical Indian classical clothing such as the dhoti wrap and tight-fitting half-sleeved stitched shirts like kurta. Another pre-Mauryan archaeological evidence of Indian dressing comes from Saurashtra janapada coins which are one of the earliest representations of Indian pre-Mauryan arts. The coins are dated between 450 and 300 BCE and have been repeatedly over struck just like punch-marked coins.

Mauryan period

The Woman statue: evidence of stitching, Mathura, 3rd century BCE.

During the Mauryan dynasty (322–185 BC) the earliest evidence of stitched female clothing is available from the statue of a woman (from Mathura, 3rd century BCE). Ladies in the Mauryan Empire often used to wear an embroidered fabric waistband with drum-headed knots at the ends. As an upper garment, people's main garment was uttariya, a long scarf. The difference existed only in the manner of wearing. Sometimes, it’s one end is thrown over one shoulder and sometimes it is draped over both shoulders.

In textiles, mainly cotton, silk, linen, wool, muslin, etc. are used as fibers. Ornaments latched on to a special place in this era also. Some of the jewelry had their specific names also. Satlari, chaulari, paklari were some of the necklaces.

Men wore Antariya (knee-length, worn in kachcha style with the fluted end tucked in at center front) and Tunic (one of the earliest depictions of the cut and sewn garment; it has short sleeves and a round neck, full front opening with ties at the neck and waist, and is hip length). A statue of a warrior shows Boots (fitting to the knees cap) and a band (tied at the back over short hair). A broad flat sword with cross straps on the sheath is suspended from the left shoulder.