A plain textile piece of raw silk, in cream colour and with narrow
breadth, this stole : an ornamental wear meant to lay around the neck
to add to its beauty besides protecting its golden lustre and the
throat from the unsympathetic cold winter and hot summer winds, looks
more like a contemporary artist’s just finished canvas rather than a
piece of ensemble displayed on a hanger in a costume-designer’s
workshop. Neck, perhaps only the second to face in a figure’s beauty,
and far more and far richly ornamented, has been since ages the theme
of jewelers and weavers, especially those weaving for beautification,
or at least crafting articles for embellishment. Necks are always
beautiful but this beauty multiplies in gold’s lustre when it
surrounds it, and in the mirrors of inlaid jewels, and so does the
neck when it radiates from the folds of a beautifully conceived and
designed textile wrapped around, and obviously a stole exploits this
situation.
Something essentially different from the rest in the ensemble, a piece
for neck, by whatever name, has always had, hence, a distinction of
its own, in the wardrobe of elite, as also on a common man’s wall, on
the golden hanger of a king or queen, and on the rugged wooden pegs of
a mud-house. As suggest stone-sculptures from the fourth-third
centuries B.C., when a textile even for covering breasts had not been
envisaged, costume fashions included a beautifully conceived and
crafted wear for laying over the shoulders beautifying the neck. This
upper wear, ‘uttariya’ as it has been named in early Sanskrit
terminology, is the visually documented earliest form of sash, stole
or whatever put around one’s neck. Besides a sash or stole-type wear
worn around the neck, an identical textile used as waistband has been
in great fashion during the entire medieval period among all, Mughals
or Rajputs.
The designer of this stole has identified its four areas : broadly,
its four corners – two each defining one end-part, to adorn and
thereby transform it into a piece of wear from a simple length.
Obviously, he seems to have had in mind that whichever way it was put
on, it essentially displayed its both ends, ether both unfurling on
the front, or one each on the front and the back. All four corners
have been differently conceived. One of the four corners has been
designed with the quarter of a circle : about one-and-a-half inch wide
line in golden yellow. The repeat patterns of a balloon-motif,
rendered in wide range of colours, intercept it. A large six-petalled
flower flanked by two stylised forked leaves floats over its apex,
while inside the ring there are two rows, one consisting of half-arch
forms alternated by ‘V’ shape motif, and the other, a curved line with
calligraphic contours intercepted by balloon-motifs.
The corner just below it has been adorned with a horizontally
stretched floral arabesque consisting of flower motifs, isolated
petals, twigs with calligraphic curves, all in various shades of
green, and two floral motifs in pink, purple and magenta. The
design-pattern on the corner, diagonally opposite it, has been
conceived with similar style of arabesques, though here its stretch
along the edge of the textile, that is, horizontally, is far wider up
to the centre, or even beyond, all patterns have been rendered in
various shades of saffron, and contours of curving lines are closer to
calligraphy. The design-pattern conceived to adorn the fourth corner
above it has been moved slightly towards the centre and to the centre
of the large horizontal motif on the edge opposite it. It is a
large-size flower with eight petals in purple with darkened contours,
and in between each two, eight forms suggestive of honey-bees.
This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet. Prof. Jain
specializes on the aesthetics of literature and is the author of
numerous books on Indian art and culture. Dr. Daljeet is the
curator of the Miniature Painting Gallery, National Museum, New
Delhi. They have both collaborated together on a number of
books.
Textiles 
