The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.44

v1.c10.44

**Style of dress:** The Vedas afford no information regarding the form and shape of the Hindu dress. Probably, the majority of the people did then, as they do now, wear scarfs or plaid-like articles (*dhuti*) completed in the loom for immediate use, keeping them in position by twisting and tucking round the waist,—“a form of dress than which”, according to Col. Meadows Taylor, “anything more convenient to walk, to sit, or to lie in, it would be impossible to invent”.²⁷ The companions of Alexander noticed the same style of dressing nearly two and twenty centuries ago, and the costume of the masses at the present time differs in no respect from what the Greek writers indicated in their descriptions. But the question may be fairly asked, were kings, princes, and chieftains, the nobles and men of quality, of [82] former times content with the simple *dhuti*, and did they not differ in any respect from the people at large in their habiliments ? Such a state of uniformity in dress is unknown even among the rudest community, and would be altogether improbable among a race who first established the system of castes. Nor is evidence wanting, circumstantial though it be, to show that a very different state of things existed among the Indian Aryans in early times. The mention of the needle and sewing in the *Saṃhitā* of the *Ṛgveda*,²⁸ cannot but suggest that even at that early period, made dresses, or such as had been prepared with the aid of scissors and needle, were not unknown. The word used is *sūcī*, the same which is used to this day to indicate a needle, and it is not likely therefore, that the word then meant only a thorn or other small pointed object. The existence of such words as needle (*sūcī*) and sewing (*sīvan*) in the Vedic language cannot be accounted for, except on the supposition that the people who used them, knew and had what they meant.²⁹ It may also be argued that it is very unlikely that the heroes of the Vedic times, who were able to forge and were in the habit of using armour and mail coats, never came to the idea of fashioning their clothes into made dresses.