''Nivi'' (nīvī, ) was a women's
garment
Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel, and attire) are items worn on the human body, body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin sheets of materials ...
. It was a simple piece of cloth draped or worn around the waist, covering the lower part of the body.
Meaning
in
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
means a lower garment worn around a women's waist.
Garment
Draping and wrapping were the accustomed forms of
ancient
Ancient history is a time period from the History of writing, beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian language, Sumerian c ...
Indian
clothing
Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel, and attire) are items worn on the body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin sheets of materials and natural ...
.
Vedas
upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''.
The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...
describes contemporary clothes according to the use and style of wrapping.
Uttariya
An uttariya () is a loose piece of upper body clothing. It is a single piece of cloth that falls from the back of the neck to curl around both arms and could also drape the top half of the body. An Uttariya is similar to a veil, a long scarf an ...
refers to an upper-body garment,
Adivasah
Adivasah ('', , )'' is an upper garment of Vedic times clothing; It is a type of over garment similar to a mantle or cloak. Vedas refers (dress) as a set of clothes with these two main components where Vasa is for the lower body and Adivasa for t ...
as an over garment, and Vasa as a lower body garment. Hence ''Nivi ''could be categorized in Vasa, that was a simple rectangular piece of clothing.
Style
Nivi drape
The ladies were encircling the nivi around the waist with tucked ends. It was an inner wrap for the lower body for women leaving the upper part bare. In old couture, it was also called'' 'nivi bandha.'
''
See also
*
Uttariya
An uttariya () is a loose piece of upper body clothing. It is a single piece of cloth that falls from the back of the neck to curl around both arms and could also drape the top half of the body. An Uttariya is similar to a veil, a long scarf an ...
*
Vadhuya
References
Hindu religious clothing
Indian clothing
{{Religion-stub