Ancient Indian Costume c4.3

c4.3

Illustrations have been selected with a view to showing as much variety as possible of the garments worn in each period. This has been done to make a reasonable reconstruction of the clothes as they evolved and changed in ancient India. An attempt has been made in the line drawings to clarify and emphasize the functional aspect of clothes by completing a broken fragment of sculpture or a line in a painting, by eliminating the extraneous, and by disentangling from the welter of sculptural or painted forms the manner in which clothes have been attached to the human body, and the elements of which they are composed. The illustrations are accompanied by brief written descriptions using, as far as possible, the appropriate terminology. Occasionally, English terms such as robe, belt, and tunic which from the strictly academic view may appear anachronistic, have been used for purposes of simplification and clarity and to avoid the sort of pedantry which only confuses the reader.