Where does Sari come from?
The sari comes from the Indian subcontinent. It is a single unstitched length of cloth, about 4 to 8 metres long, wrapped around the waist and draped over one shoulder, and its roots reach back to ancient India.
Three pieces become one
Sari-like draped clothing can be traced back to between 2800 and 1800 BCE in the northwest of the subcontinent, where cotton was already grown and woven. The sari itself grew out of a three-piece outfit described in Sanskrit and Pali writings from the 6th century BCE: the antariya, a lower garment; the uttariya, a veil worn over the shoulder or head; and the stanapatta, a chest band, which became the fitted blouse, or choli, by the 1st century CE.
More than 80 ways to drape
The word comes from Sanskrit śāṭī, 'strip of cloth', and that strip can be worn in more than 80 recorded ways; the textile scholar Rta Kapur Chishti documented 108. The most common today, the nivi, comes from the Deccan. One end is tucked into the waistband of a petticoat, the cloth is wrapped once, gathered into pleats below the navel and tucked in, and after one more turn the loose end goes over the shoulder. The petticoat was adopted under colonial rule, along with Victorian-style blouses among the elites of Bombay and Bengal.
Woven across the subcontinent
The sari is worn in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal, and many regions have their own weaves, such as the Banarasi silks of Uttar Pradesh and the Kanchipuram silks of Tamil Nadu. Around Dhaka, weavers make jamdani, a sheer, patterned cotton whose motifs are created directly on the handloom. The craft thrives because Bengali women wear jamdani as saris, and UNESCO listed it as intangible cultural heritage in 2013.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org ↗ · sarmaya.in ↗ · ich.unesco.org ↗
