The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.70.2

v1.c10.70.2

[78] ) in which Uṣā is compared to "a youthful bride before her husband, uncovering, smiling, her bosom in his presence", depicts a peculiarity of Indian female dress, which it would be difficult to conceive, had altogether disappeared from the land when the sculptures were incised, and that a bead girdle was the only attire for the body left even to queens and princesses; when improvements in other respects of social life were marked and progressing; when people lived in two and three-storied houses of brick and stone, such as the Sāñcī bas-reliefs represent; when they drove about in carriages and wagons; freely wrought in gold, silver, copper and iron; and manufactured enough of woven fabrics of a superior quality, such as were exported to and greatly prized in the, for the time, highly civilized countries of the West. The veil, the bodice, and body-clothes, are repeatedly mentioned in the *Rāmāyaṇa* and the *Mahābhārata*; and both in the Hindu and the Buddhist codes of law and morality, modesty of dress in women is everywhere insisted upon as a matter of paramount importance. In the ancient code of laws by Śaṅkha, there is an ordinance which says, "Let no woman go out of the house without permission; nor without a sheet over her dress; nor should she be allowed to run or walk very fast; nor speak with male strangers, unless they be tradesmen, hermits, old people, or medical practitioners;