sAri, the Indian dress

[Bharat Gupt]

Yashwant Malaiya wrote:
>
> Sujata asked:
>
> > How old is the North Indian head covering tradition?


The discussion has thrown up many mixed issues. Nature of dress (saarii, cailam,
s'aatii, etc.,) , covering the head for protection from sun or purdah and the foreign
influence whether Greek, Roman or Turkish.

The word saarii always seemed to have denoted untailored and  only draped cloth. But how
it was worn through the ages in India can be determined from sculpture and a bit from
poetry. Ancient  s'aat.ii was a not a single cloth but two (upper and lower) and  it is
clear that women did veil their hair, faces and upper body as indicated by the  word
"avagunth.ana" used in epics and drama texts.

So shall we say that the Greeks took it from us?  May be, though they dont seem to know
 India very well before the voyage of Skylax funded by Darius. Most probably it is
nothing more than a common response, protecting women from greedy gazing.

The Greek women covered their head on formal and mournful moments is clear from 4th
cent. B.C. gravestones. The himation (something like the present day North Indian
chaader) was used to cover the head also. The Roman women used "palla" in place of
himation. Palla seemes to have entered India and survives till date in name and shape.
In any case it was hardly different from draping for the upper body called uttariiya.
Maybe it came with words like kore (young girl in Greek) (Punjabi kur.ii). But it is
obvious that in ancient Greece, Rome and India the hair (and face) was covered by women
in certain cirumstances only.

First the Christian code of constantly hiding the female body and hair and later the
Islamic code of purdah, used the earlier draping to make complete and all-time coverage
of the hair in the Mediterranean and the hair and well as the face in North India. Under
the Turkish rule in the Mediterranean and the slavic regions the later version of the
Roman palla was replaced by the kerchief,  while it survive in India in various versions
like chuunrii, chaader, dupatta etc.

Hiding women by veil from the invaders could not have been of much avail as it was a
Central Asian and Middle East  practice to abduct vanquished women and keep them as
slaves, concubines and wives in the aftermath of war. It was the code Islamic of purdah
that Hindus absorbed from the new ruling class more so in North India.

Bharat Gupt