Ancient Indian Costume c8.s3.8

c8.s3.8

The breast-band had been used since Vedic times, as with the Greeks, mainly as a support for the breasts rather than to cover them. There was in addition to the breast-band, an indigenous stitched garment known as *cholaka*, *chola*, *choli*, *cholika*, and *kancholika*, which is mentioned in early Sanskrit literature. The primitive *choli* was cut very simply from a square piece of cloth, with a slit for the neck. This was also the early form used as protection by the women of the Germanic or Teutonic races in the Early Bronze age. This evolution from the unstitched to the stitched garment had an inescapable logic as it evolved for purely functional purposes. In the case of the Germanic races it was protection from the cold, and in India it served the purpose of modesty.