sAri, the Indian dress

[Yashwant Malaiya]

Sujata asked:

> How old is the North Indian head covering tradition? I have
>read somewhere (unable to recall the title of the book) that
>this tradition developed to protect the women folk from invaders
>from the North West.

>Which word is older, Tamil cElai or Sanskri saa.Rii?

I remeber having read somewhere that covered head first
appeared in Gandhar due to Indo-Greek influence. It probably
did not get popular until the Turkish conquest. It was common
for native women to be taken by the taken by the the nobility,
and thus covering the head might have been a safeguard.

I do remeber having seen some Gandharan sculpture with
women covering the head. Perhaps through the Roman
influence, the Greek custom had also propagated to
Ethipia[1].

saa.Rii is from shaaTii, which originally should have
meant just a cloth. The Jain monks called eka-shaaTak
wore it on the shoulder (as suggested by Mathura sculptures
of 1-3rd AD).

Sanskrit "chaila(m)" also means a cloth, the Digambara
monks were sometimes referred to as "achailaka". I am
not sure which of the two words is related to the
Tamil term.

Regarding idol of Ambika, the Jain mother Goddess[2],
I have seen her portrayed only without head cover
(in sculpture).Is there a photograph showing her with
head covered somewhere? Incidentally, N. Ganeshan mentioned
that  Sankara etc, are shown with head covered. Covering
the head was also a convention among Jain Bhattarakas
until recently, as one can see from the photographs.

Yashwant

[1] But I'm not sure why there is significant
similarity between Ethiopian and Indian cooking.

[2]
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind9912&L=indology&D=1&O=D&F=&S=
&P=18681