Sigiriya, Sri Lanka
Picture: From Bernard Gagnon - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3770318
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) is an island state south of India in the Indian Ocean. From rainforests and arid plains to highlands and beaches, Sri Lanka offers varied landscapes.
Ancient Buddhist monuments such as the 5th century Sigiriya Fortress with its palaces and frescoes are famous. Anuradhapura was once the capital of Sri Lanka and has many buildings with more than 2,000 years of history.
Ancient Buddhist monuments such as the 5th century Sigiriya Fortress with its palaces and frescoes are famous. Anuradhapura was once the capital of Sri Lanka and has many buildings with more than 2,000 years of history.
Because of its geographic location, the island has been a strategic center for maritime shipping between the Middle East and Southeast Asia from ancient times to modern times.
The southern and surrounding areas of the holy city of Anuradhapura are the centers of ancient Buddhism, while Hindu temple complexes exist in the north and east. Today the country is a multi-ethnic country with Buddhism and Hinduism being the main religions in the country.
Sinhalese make up the majority of the population. Tamils are the largest ethnic minority. Furthermore, the Moors, Malays, Burgs and the Vidas, the indigenous people of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is famous for the manufacture and export of tea, coffee, gum and coconut.
The island has become a popular tourist destination due to its beautiful scenery and rich cultural heritage (such as Ayurveda, a traditional healing art). 1
Saree worn by Demi Jesuthasan
Picture: From Ali Haidar - Own work, https://haipalix.com/
Saree
The saree from South Asia is a sewn wrap skirt with a one-sided wrap on the shoulder for women. Saree is a traditional clothing that is still worn very frequently in everyday life in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. There are also holiday sarees. The Sri Lankan clothing has nothing to do with religion in the first place, but represents various festivals in Tamil culture.
There are many ways to wear a saree. They vary depending on the cultural area, so that the origin of the wearer can also be identified by the way in which the item of clothing is worn. In Gujarat (state in West India), for example, the end of the saree does not hang down at the back, but at the front. There are also clothes that have changed over time with modernization, such as the lehenga.
The saree consists of a rectangular fabric, about 0.8 m - 1.20 m wide and about 5 m - 7 m long, mostly seamless, with a more or less wide decorative border on the sides and / or on the ends of a different color. The fabric length can be divided into three zones. The paluv, the shoulder part that is mostly thrown over the left shoulder and is the most decorative, then the saree body (skirt), which can be both simple and very decorative, and lines the final decorative trim. Traditional sarees are made of cotton and are cheaper to produce. However, there are also high-quality sarees that are worn on special occasions and are made of silk, which are more complex and expensive to produce.
In the past, the only item of clothing for women was the length of the fabric, mostly white cotton. In this day and age, a t-shirt is sometimes worn. The upper body is protected from prying eyes by a tight T-shirt with short sleeves without a belly, called a choli.
However, both are mostly contemporary traditions and, aside from a few early Indian examples, most likely have Arab, European, mostly British influences. The modern clothing culture of the saree has changed at a reduced rate in the last couple of years. Depending on the person and personal taste, you can try out a number of variations and combine jewelry and dress.
In some transparent holiday sarees, the choli has been significantly reduced in size or replaced by a strapless bra since the last decades of the 20th century. 2
Lehenga worn by Lukkyta Jesuthasan
Picture: From Ali Haidar - Own work, https://haipalix.com/
Lehenga
Lehenga (half saree) refers to a woman's garment cut to length on the northwest Indian subcontinent that is visually similar to a saree. As with the saree, there are everyday and festival lehenga.
The lehenga consist of a floor-length skirt, waist cuffs and wide hem edges as well as independent shoulder throws or veils.
There is also a petticoat and a short-sleeved jacket (also known as choli). 3
«It has been part of Hindu tradition for a long time and is said to awaken the spiritual chakras of the human body.
According to Hindu culture, lehenga is used as suitable clothing and, on a spiritual level, also as sattvige clothing 4 (Purity / sacred clothing) viewed.» 5
Translated quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehenga