All of us enjoy decorating our bodies.In ancient times it was believed thatbesides enhancing its beauty,decorating the body gave itadditional strength and power. Eventoday many tribal societies useflowers, wild berries, leaves andfeathers for this purpose. Flowersand fruits celebrate nature andgrowth while feathers are valued fortheir colour and for the power offlight. Seeds, even wings of insects such ascolourful beetle wings are used as embellishmentand decoration.

One of the oldest forms used in jewellery wasthat of a sphere, representing the seed, the bija.Later a range of beads were made from clay, glass,metals and precious stones. This symbolisedfertility, growth and the origin of life.

Many jewellery forms made in metalreproduce forms of flowers and fruits.Champakali is a necklace made of jasmine budmotifs and is worn throughout India. Karanphuljhumka is a combination of the form of an openlotus at the ear lobe and a suspended half openbud. Mangai mala is a rich necklace from TamilNadu, with stylised mango forms studded withrubies. Precious metals such as gold and silverwere for the rich while the less affluent usedeven brass and white metal. Gold wasassociated with the sun, and silver, chandi, withchandrama ó the moon.

In the past when there was discrimination onthe basis of caste, only the upper castes were allowedto wear gold. This is now changing and thosewho can afford it, wear gold and precious jewels.

5 JEWELLERY

Strings made of differenttypes of seeds

50 LIVING CRAFT TRADITIONS OF INDIA

Meaning and Significance of Jewellery

In some tribal societies, each ornament was a symbol ofthe rank and status of the wearer, and it was also believedto have certain magical powers. Thus, the purpose ofornamentation was not only to satisfy an instinctive desireto decorate the body, it was also invested with symbolicsignificance. This aspect is clearly expressed in the form ofamulets which carry inscribed prayers to protect the wearerfrom evil influences. All communities and faiths use thisform of jewellery as protection against harm or to activatecertain positive qualities.

It was with the establishment of a settled agrarian societythat jewellery became a form of saving and a symbol ofstatus. A variety of designs in folk jewellery evolved overthe years, and the important position of the jeweller invillage society also points to the fact that jewellery wasconsidered as the only form of investment which could beencashed during an emergency.

It was mandatory for married women to wear jewellery.Necklace, earrings, head ornaments and bangles wereessential for every married woman. It was only widowswho were deprived of jewellery.

Jewellery for Every Part of the Body

Each region in India has a particular style of jewellerythat is quite distinct. Differences occur even as one goesfrom one village to another.

Despite the variety in jewellery patterns indifferent parts of the country, the designs in eachregion are also at times strikingly similar.

Head and Forehead: Women wear the bore restingupon the parting of the hair in Rajasthan and partsof Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, whereas the tikka,a rounded pendant at the end of a long chain whichfalls on the forehead, is used throughout India. Theshringar patti which frames the face and oftenconnects with the tikka on the top and the earringsare also used widely. In earlier times men wore thekalgi, a plumed jewel, on top of the turban.

Nose: The ornament worn all over India hasvariations from the simple lavang, clove, to phuli,the elaborately worked stud, or nath, the nose-ringworn in the right nostril, and the bulli, the nosering worn in the centre just over the lips.

Streedhan: From Vedictimes onwards, jewellerywas counted as a womaníswealth and comprised a partof her inheritance from herfather, as well as a gift fromher husband.

Ornaments worn by aBhartanatyam dancer

51JEWELLERY

Neck: One of the ornaments is the guluband,which is made up of either beads or rectangularpieces of metal, strung together with the help ofthreads. A ribbon is attached at the back toprotect the neck of the wearer. Then there isthe longer kanthi or the bajaithi. Below this isworn either a silver chain or a necklace of beads.The men would wear a charm or a tawiz at theneck and a kantha, a long necklace.

Fingers: For the hands there are a number ofrings. On festive occasions women wear thehathphool or ratthan-chowk to decorate the back of the hand.

Wrists: For the wrists there is the kada, the paunchi, thegajra and the chuda, which quite often extends six inchesabove the wrist.

Arms: The bazoo, the joshan, and the bank are worn abovethe elbow. Men wore a heavy kada or bangle.

Hips: A series of silver chains formed into a belt are wornat the hips and are generally known as kandora or kardhani,while the men would wear a silver or gold belt.

Ankles: Solid, heavy metal anklets combine with thedelicately worked paizebs ending in tinkling, silver, hollowbells, while men would wear a heavy silver anklet. Onlyroyalty wore gold on their feet.

Toes: The bichhua, scorpion ring, for the toe is put on bywomen at the time of their marriage.

Jewellery for variousparts of the body

52 LIVING CRAFT TRADITIONS OF INDIA

Jewellery through the Ages

3000ñ1500 BCE Harappan PeriodIndia has an unbroken tradition of overfive thousand years of jewellery making.The excavations at the Harappan sitehave uncovered beads and shell bangles.The shell bangles are exactly similar tothe ones worn by married women inLadakh. Gold sheets shaped into headbands were also found.

300 BCEñ300 CE The richest collection of jewellery wasdiscovered in Taxila, an importantBuddhist centre of learning. It was on thetrade route, as well as the road formigration of people entering India. Herethe jewellery exhibits Greek influence andthe introduction of new technology suchas filigree and granulation.

It is interesting to observe, however,that there are marked similaritiesbetween our present-day jewellerydesigns and the jewellery of theSumerians and the early Greeks.

A necklace excavated at Ur, which ismade up of finely designed pendants oflion-heads with granulated work, andsupposed to have belonged to QueenBathsheba, has a remarkable likeness tothe garuda necklace prepared in Kerala.

Early Greek jewellery has a closesimilarity with some of the traditionaljewellery of Kutch and Saurashtra. Thepatterns of some Egyptian jewellery,especially armlets with snakeheads, arefound in India, as well.

400 CE There is a close similarity in thejewellery design of today with those ofearly times. This we know fromdescriptions in literature, and in thedepiction of jewellery in sculpture andpainting.

53JEWELLERY

The kanthi, a necklace worn close tothe neck and the phalakhara, a longnecklace comprising a number oftablets strung with a series of beads,is seen in the early Gupta periodand is found in use even today inmost parts of North India. Thechudamani, shaped like a full-blownlotus with many petals, was wornat the parting of the hair and issimilar to the present day bore ofRajasthan.

In the Ramayana, there is mentionof Sita wearing a nishka necklace.Nishka, a gold coin, is also referredto in the Jataka stories. Thetradition of wearing of coinnecklaces continues.

900 CE The use of the nose ornament wasintroduced into India quite late, asthe early sculptures and murals donot show nose ornaments. Itappears to have been introduced bythe Arabs after the tenth centuryand, over the years, it becamecommon all over India and becameassociated with marriage.

1500ñ1900 The Mughals had fine jewellery andused large precious stones. Jahangirístreasury, described by Sir ThomasRoe, an English traveller, had 37.5kilograms of diamonds and 3000kilograms of pearls and rich jewellery,often colourful enamel jewelleryembedded with precious stones.

1900 onwards With body piercing becomingpopular in the West, young Indianmen and women have begunpiercing not just the nose and ear,but their tongue, the navel andother parts of the body to wearjewellery.

About 26 per centof Indiaís exportscomprise gemsand jewels.

54 LIVING CRAFT TRADITIONS OF INDIA

Though all the hill jewellery of Kullu andKinnaur Districts is made in Hoshiarpurin Himachal Pradesh, it has its ownparticular style. The pipal patra, madeout of bunches of heart-shaped silverleaves fastened to an enamelled piece ofsilver, is worn in these areas by womenon both sides of their caps. It frames theirfaces with the light shimmering incascades of silver. Their necklaces areformed out of large metal plates,engraved with the traditional designs ofthe region and filled with green andyellow enamel. The most common designis of Devi riding her lion.

The nose ornaments of Kullu are alsohighly specialised. The large-sized nathand boulak designs of a single leaf arenot to be seen in any other part ofIndia. On festive occasions theywear a large nath, oftenlarger than the faceof the wearer.

The belts worn in Andhra Pradeshhave intricate clasps of the doublehead of a rakshas or kirtimukha.

Another pattern of a kara, whichis common in Andhra Pradesh, isthat of serpent-heads which appearto be holding the earth in theirmouths. The necklaces often derivetheir designs from shapes of grains.

The jewellery of Kashmir is quite distinct.The most important are the ear ornaments,known as kan-balle, worn by Muslimwomen on both sides of the head. Theycomprise a number of rings, which areattached to the hair or the cap. Thisjewellery is also worn in Ladakh and otherHimalayan areas such as Lahaul, Spiti,and Kinnaur.

In Punjab, women wear a specialornament, chonk. It is cone-shaped and isworn at the top of the head with twosmaller cones, known as phul, worn at thesides.

Despite the fact that styles in jewellery have, onthe whole, tended to develop region-wise, we findthat certain distinctive forms have been developedby specific sections, groups or areas.

Regional Varieties of Jewellery

55JEWELLERY

In Assam the tribes patronise silver jewellery, whilein the plains gold jewellery is preferred. The patternsof gold jewellery are extremely delicate. The jewels,though few, are finely finished. The earring, knownas thuria, has the form of a lotus with a heavy stem.The shape reminds one of the traditional kamalearrings mentioned in ancient literature. Thuria isusually made of gold and studded with rubies in thefront portion as well as at the back.

The folk jewellery ofOrissa in silver and goldis rich in patterns, formsand designs. The mostpopular technique isfiligree. The traditionalfiligree work is robust incharacter and distinctfrom what is being produced commercially today inCuttack. Very few head ornaments are worn in Orissa.The accent is on arm jewels, necklaces, nose-ringsand anklets, with the finest designs found on noseornaments. One design known as maurpankhi, iscrafted like a peacock with open feathers, made with

the processes of granulation,filigree and casting.

In Sambalpur, brass jewelleryis common. Bangles in differentpatterns are polished daily andappear to be made of gold.

Kerala has a very richvariety of gold designs. Theuse of precious stones is notso common here. Variety isseen mostly in necklaces.The garuda necklaceproduced here bearstestimony to the fineworkmanship of thecraftsmen of the area.

In Tamil Nadu, silver filigree armlets worn by Vellalarsof Coimbatore District have excellent workmanship ingranular work.

Chettinad jewellery, made of uncut rubies, is one of thefinest. The addigai is a necklace made of a string of uncutrubies set in gold. A central motif of the padakam imitatesthe lotus. The mangai-malai is a necklace of mango-shapedpieces studded with uncut rubies and diamonds. The plaitcover often has at the top the head of a naga or snake.The jewellery of the Todas and the Kotas of the Nilgiris

in Tamil Nadu, are very distinctive.

In West Bengal, the filigreework on gold and silverjewellery is extremelydelicate. The finest pieces ofjewellery are the hairornaments like the tara kantaand the paan kanta ó hairpins designed like a star anda betel leaf.

CE

56 LIVING CRAFT TRADITIONS OF INDIA

Meenakari or Enamel Work

One of the most sophisticated forms of jewellery developedin North India is meenakari. Jaipur is the main centre,but some craftsmen practise this art in Delhi, Lucknowand Varanasi as well.

Meenakari is combined with kundan to produce a delicateand rich effect. The meenakari or enamelled patterns areso fine and intricate that they need to be examined with amagnifying glass. This tradition continues even today.

A step-by-step description of how the techniques ofmeenakari and kundan are combined to make exquisitejewellery is given below.

1. The shape of the jewellery is first created.

2. The jeweller cuts out the sections where precious stonesneed to be inlaid.

3. It is then handed over to the meenakar who fills thesections with lac, fixes it on a stick of lac, and outlinesdelicate designs of flowers, foliage and birds.

4. After making the outline, the entire area is engravedfor filling the enamel colour.

57JEWELLERY

5. To contain each colour different compartments arecreated. Within the enclosed, tiny compartments, linesare engraved to hold each colour and also to reflectlight, since many of the colours are transparent.

6. After this the colours are filled in and fired in a simpleclay oven at maximum temperature.

7. Colours which require a lesser degree of heat are thenfilled in their respective compartments in the designand fired again, until the whole piece is worked withenamel on both sides.

8. Then the piece is given to the kundan worker, whoheats it on warm ashes and fixes the stones in theempty spaces, which had earlier been cut to shape.

9. A fine gold filling, shaped to the size of the opening andintended to hold the gem in place, is then heated andfused to the base of the piece.

10. The finished piece is then polished with a soft leathercloth till it glows. The beauty of the meenakari ornamentlies in the combination of elaborate patterns in enamelwith the lustre of precious stones.

The uniqueness of the meenakari ornament lies in thefact that even the back of the piece is elaborately decorated,though it will only be seen by the wearer.

58 LIVING CRAFT TRADITIONS OF INDIA

The Edge of ToleranceFollowing is a poem ëAn Amethystí by a school student whichdepicts the hardships in the life of a gem-cutter.

I am an imported amethyst from AfricaI can see the difficulties of my shaperHis age is 39 years.And he had been working from the age of eight,The machine is his own and cost him 250 rupeesIt looks to me as if he is being killed by degreesShaping an amethyst on a wheel,With his B.A. degree packed with a sealSat Shaldir Ahmad, the stone cutterHe was oppressed but no cry for help could he utter.Late to bed and early to rise,He wakes at five and sleeps at 10 oí clock in the nightConcentrating to shape me, the right sizeDue to this process he weakens his eyesight.This was the work his father Sammu KhanHad to doAnd his grandfather Illahi Achan did the same work,His children go to a schoolHe wants them to read and writeAnd not like him be in a plight.The labour is one rupee per caratHe gets 1000ñ2000 rupees in a monthFor all his hard work, no part time job he can doThe machine might be his, but the seth owns the Factory.The uncut amethysts like me are imported,After being worked at they are exported.Itís not because the foreign workers are slow,Itís because the cost of our cut amethysts are lowBecause the workersí pay scale is low.How hard he works, how little he gets,How hard he struggles, but, alas! He fails.This is my tale,This is my story,You for yourselves can nowUnderstand a workerís sadness and fury.

Bangles and the Bangle-maker

In Firozabad it is a familiar sight to see people on bicycles,wheeling handcarts or cycle rickshaws which are piled high withbrightly coloured bangles. They are either being taken to peopleíshomes for completion or back to the factory for refiring.

Within homes also known as ëjudai addasí, the bangles gothrough the stages of jhalai, judai and katai. The bangles comein large bunches of 312 bangles, of which 12 bangles are reservedfor breakage.

Uncut amethyst

59JEWELLERY

The first stage is jhalai. This work is done by the womenand children in the family. Four to five members sit in theirone-room house, which serves as their living, sleeping andworking area. The roof and the walls of this room are absolutelyblack with thick soot. The soot comes from the kerosene lampsthat are used in their work.

In front of each person are 10 ñ12 small kerosene oil wicklamps placed in a semi-circle. Each bangle is then held by bothends and the middle is heated over the flame. The heated bangleis then placed on the ground and gently pressed to align the twoends. Care has to be taken to ensure that there are no burnseither from the flame or the heated bangle.

These aligned bangles are now taken over by the men or olderboys for the next stage which is that of joining the bangle orjudai. In this process the two ends of the bangles are heated overa kerosene and acetylene flame. The ends are pressed togetherand the flame melts the glass enough to join the bangle and makeit a complete circle.

In both the stages of jhalai and judai the workers suffer therisk of being burnt besides straining their eyes. Cramps, pain inthe joints as well as severe backache are some of the otherproblems faced by these workers.

The joined bangles are now ready for the katai addas. Thecarving is done on a fast revolving wheel on which designs areetched into the glass. During this process it is very common forthe worker to get cut on the wheel or get flying glass particlesinto his eye. This is accompanied by aches and pains includinga strain on the back.

Gold coating is the next step that the bangles go through.Here a solution of pure gold and chemicals is poured into thedesigns etched on the bangles, giving them an elaborate look.During this stage the workers handle all the raw chemicalswithout wearing any protective gloves or aprons.

As the gold solution is very expensive, the workers have to bevery careful in handling it, so as to minimise wastage.

The bangles are now sent back to the factory for refiring, whichgives them a sheen. These are put individually on a tin tray andplaced in a furnace. They have to be pulled out to check andrecheck if the process is complete. The workers run the risk ofexposure to excessive heat, burns and heat cataract. Finally thebangles are sorted out and packed in boxes.

ñ FEISAL ALKAZI, MARTHA FARELL andSHVETA KALYANWALA, ëThe Danger Withiní

60 LIVING CRAFT TRADITIONS OF INDIA

1. Designs translate natural forms into symbols. What doyou think were the sources of inspiration and symbolismof the following. (Example: Bija or seed representsgrowth, fertility, prosperity.) (a) Mangai mala, (b)Shikhar of a temple, (c) Dome of a mosque, (d) Woodentribal pole, (e) Kumbha or pot, (f) Kite.

2. It is said that in Rajasthan a woman carries all herwealth on her body in the form of jewellery. This is oneof the ways of investing wealth. What are the otherways of conserving oneís wealth?

3. It is difficult to decide whether it is folk jewellery whichhas influenced urban jewellery, or vice versa. There isno doubt, however, that many of the forms like the bore,the har, the hathphool, the gajra, originally developedin folk jewellery were later adopted by city jewellerswho refined them by using gold and precious stones.Do you agree? Argue your case giving examples ofcontemporary male and female jewellery fashions inyour region.

4. It is interesting, however, to find that children of allcastes and communities wear the hasli as it is supposedto protect their collarbone from dislocation. What dochildren of your community wear and what is thesignificance of each piece of jewellery?

5. Until recently designs in clothes and jewellery of thepeople all over India were governed by their particularcaste and the community to which they belonged. Doyou think this tradition is changing, and why?

6. Investigate the occupational health hazards in differentaspects of jewellery production, as for example inmeenakari work or in the bangle industry. How canthis be addressed?

7. A recent Hollywood film called Blood Diamond describesthe political conflict, exploitation of children, andslavery involved in the mining of diamonds in Africa.Write a poem or story on a related theme based on yourobservation/experience/research.

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