The dress and adornment in ancient Sri Lanka

By Amal Hewavissenti

The story of Prince Vijaya's arrival in Sri Lanka contains obvious implications of an excellent tradition of producing costumes. The ancient sculptures of Isurumuniya and the frescoes of Sigiriya offer a fairly vivid picture of the nature of ancient dress. According to the legend of Prince Vijaya, a Sri Lankan lady called Kuveni was threading cotton yarn on a simple machine.

The paintings, sculpture and literary works illustrate the ancient Sri Lankan woman's dress as a scanty drape and a collection of heavy jewellery.

This drape was a single lower garment in which the cloth was taken from the front of the hip, pulled back under the thighs and tucked in at the back.

This garment was fitted to the hip with an elaborate belt which was embellished with jewels.

The upper part of a woman's body was often decorated with rich jewellery instead of a dress. This was the traditional dress worn by the typical woman of 5th century AD. The Sri Lankan folk poets who composed rhythmic lines on the mirror wall described a “golden woman” clad in Chinese silk cloth and a dark woman with a silken cloth in one hand and a string of pearls on the other.

The lower dress (worn by women in Sigiri frescoes and sculpture) is shown to be a cloth with artistic pleats and frills at the waist. Knee-length garments are worn by Sigiri damsels who are interpreted to be King Kashyapa's retinue with flowers in their hands or celestial maidens.

Garments

However, these paintings and sculpture show that the upper class women wore no garments to cover up the upper part of their bodies while their servants wore a top garment during the 5th century AD. Instead the “golden” women wore heavy jewellery to make balance with their lower garments.

During this period, colourful ornamentation on a bare upper torso of a woman or a man was considered to signify dignity and to amplify personal charm.

Our fastidious attention to every detail in the paintings or sculpture shows that the earliest traditional costume focussed more on the art of folds, frills and drapes for decoration instead of tailoring. The available material for dress included cotton (notable in the Vijaya - Kuveni story), vegetable silk and other varieties of silk imported chiefly from China and India.

The male attire too bore resemblance to the contemporary female costume with slight differences however. The male partner in the famous sculpture in Isurumuniya is seen wearing a pair of shorts considered to be warrior uniform.

The bare upper torso of the male lover is exquisitely adorned with heavy jewellery and and other ornaments. The earliest Sinhala Kings mounted up their personal grace by adorning the bare upper part of their body with an array of ornaments such as chains, medallions, waist belts set with precious stones and armlets. The literary works claim that the earliest Kings had their upper torso embellished with 64 types of ornaments - a clear indication of the highest status of the wearer.

Adornment

The typical lower garment of early Sri Lankan woman was fastened to the body with a manimekhala, a bejewelled belt which was exquisitely carved with varied patterns.

The lack of drapery on the upper part of woman's body was however artistically balanced by rich adornment. The “golden maidens” of upper class as depicted in Sigiriya frescoes, were heavily laden with jewellery and all types of ornaments from head to foot.

The Sigiri maids wear almost four necklaces with a bead in the centre flanked by twin beads of smaller size. The chief necklace features a pendant which bears a large precious stone with pearls surrounding it.

Armlets studded with several rows of pearls were worn in upper arms while broad bracelets inset with big (precious) stones were on their wrists. The bigger bracelets were accompanied by thinner bangles. The broad bracelet with precious stones were a perfect match for the chief necklace they wore.

The first archaeological commissioner of Sri Lanka H.C.P. Bell, detected an almost invisible top garment on some maidens on Sigiriya frescoes.

These maidens are thought to be the maid servants of the maids with a gold colour skin. This near-invisible top garment has probably been a short jacket.

Both males and females appear to have considered chains, pearls and all types of ornaments fashionable. Apart from the accounts of the King's ornaments and the ear ornaments of Tamil soldiers, details regarding the specific male ornaments are absent in historical records.

Gems, pearls, diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds were commonly used to produce both male and female ornaments.

Decorated

The high born women's hair was tied in a knot at the top and decorated with flowers of various hues while the maid servants had their hair cascading along the back or tied in a knot behind the neck.

The application of perfume, body paint, make-up or body lotions appears to have been widespread even in the earliest period of history. This was a part and parcel of the attire of men and women.

However, both men and women avoided the splendour of their costumes particularly at religious ceremonies and rituals and adopted a simpler dress for such occasions.

Historical sources also refer to the use of foot wear specially ornamented shoes and parasols.