The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c15.s1.49

c15.s1.49

In Maharashtra itself we find quite unexpectedly the *vikachchha* fashion of the Gangetic plain prevailing down to the 7th or the 8th century A. D. This is rather strange, but the evidence of sculptures is quite convincing on the point. In most of the Ajanta frescoes, we find both ladies and maid-servants usually wearing their *saris* without a *kachchha*⁴. The same is the case with women sculptured at Nagarjunikonda in Telugu country ; it is only maidservants who occasionally appear there with a *sakachchha sari*¹. It is after about 900 A. D., that we begin to get images of goddesses in the Deccan wearing the *sari* in the *sakachchha fasion*. We may therefore presume that this fashion became popular in the Deccan at about the end of the first millennium of the Christian era. Later images and statues from south India, whether in stone or copper, generally attest to the prevalence of the *sakachchha* fashion. This becomes quite clear from the bronze statues from Tanjore exhibited in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, whose backs also can be clearly examined.