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Word of the Day – Monday, February 29th |
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SARI (SAWR-ee) A
garment, 6 yards long, worn by Hindu women
A sari (also spelled saree) is a garment worn by many women in the Indian subcontinent. It consists of a long strip of cloth which can be wrapped in various styles. The most common style is wrapped around the waist, then one end is draped over the shoulder. It is usually five to six yards of unstitched cloth worn over a midriff-baring blouse (known as a choli), and a petticoat. Some sari styles require nine yards of cloth.
The word 'sari' is believed to derive from the Sanskrit word 'sati', which means strip of cloth. This evolved into the Prakrit 'sadi' and was later anglicised into 'sari'.
Some versions of the history of Indian clothing trace the sari back to the Indus valley civilization, which flourished in 2800-1800 BCE. One ancient statue shows a man in a draped robe which some sari researchers believe to be a precursor of the sari.
Ancient Tamil poetry, such as the Silappadhikaram and the Kadambari by Banabhatta, describes women in exquisite drapery. This drapery is believed to be a sari. In the Natya Shastra (an ancient Indian treatise describing ancient dance and costumes), the navel of the Supreme Being is considered to be the source of life and creativity. Hence the stomach of the dancer is to be left unconcealed, which some take to indicate the wearing of a sari.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Sari”
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