Chhattisgarh Plains · Central Highlands & Forest Belt
A plain with no court and therefore no court dress. What it has instead is a working sari worn in a way that assumes standing in water, a silver vocabulary that was a household's savings account, and one genuinely famous cloth — kosa, a silk reared on wild moths in the forest and woven at Champa. The most striking dress in the region is also the plainest: the white dhoti and bead necklace of the Panthi dancers, where the absence of ornament is the statement.
What is worn
A coarse cotton sari worn kachhora style — the pleats drawn between the legs and tucked at the back — so it clears the water in a transplanted field. The drape is a working design, not a regional flourish, and it loosens into an ordinary wrap for town.
Worn for: Everyday
The short blouse worn with the lugra, cut higher and looser than the fitted choli of the north.
Worn for: Everyday
A dhoti wrapped short, a sleeveless jacket, and a checked gamchha that serves as towel, headpad, sling and shade in the course of one day.
Worn for: Everyday
Bare torso, white dhoti, a kanthi bead necklace and nothing else. The company dances around a jaitkhamb, the white pillar and flag that is the Satnam emblem, and the deliberate plainness of the dress is part of the doctrine being danced.
Worn for: Panthi performance
A peacock-feather crown, ankle bells, a mirrored jacket, and a stick and small shield carried in the hands. It is worn once a year, for a procession through the village, and the household it stops at is expected to receive it.
Worn for: Dev Uthni Ekadashi
Undyed tussar in its natural gold-fawn, matte rather than lustrous, often with a temple-motif border woven at Champa or Raigarh. The region's one garment with a national reputation.
Worn for: Weddings and festivals
Weaves and textiles
Kosa, a tussar silk from the wild moth Antheraea mylitta reared outdoors on saja, sal and arjun. It is registered as a geographical indication. The yarn is uneven by nature, which is why kosa cloth has a slub and a matte surface where mulberry silk is smooth and bright.
The second weaving centre, working the same wild silk with its own border vocabulary. Raigarh's silk and its Kathak gharana grew under the same twentieth-century court patronage.
Plain and checked cotton in narrow widths on pit looms, made for local wear. Much of the surviving capacity has been turned over to kosa, where the margins are.
Jewellery
Traditional dress of Chhattisgarh Plains — garments, handloom weaves, GI-tagged textiles and jewellery. (9)