Dhoti, kurta and gamchhaMen
White or checked cotton, with the gamchha doing duty as towel, headcloth, sling and shade. Ritual observance requires unstitched cloth, which keeps the dhoti in use.
Worn for: Everyday and ritual
Magadh · Middle & Lower Gangetic Plain
Dress and textiles
Everyday dress here is the plain eastern-plain wardrobe — dhoti or lungi with a gamchha for men, cotton sari for women — and the region's textile interest lies in a single village weave and a robe worn by people who are not from here at all: the maroon and saffron of the monastic communities who have made Bodh Gaya their winter home.
What is worn
Cotton sari with a coloured borderWomen
Worn in the eastern manner, often drawn over the head; silk for weddings and Chhath.
Worn for: Everyday and festive
Monastic robes at Bodh GayaMonks and nuns of many traditions
Theravada saffron, Tibetan maroon, Japanese black and Korean grey are all ordinary street dress in Bodh Gaya between November and February, in a town of a few thousand permanent residents.
Worn for: Year-round, and heavily in the winter teaching season
Weaves and textiles
Bawan Buti weavingGI tagNalanda (Basawan Bigha)
A cotton and tussar sari carrying fifty-two hand-woven motifs — Buddhist symbols among them, including the wheel, the bodhi leaf and the lotus — worked by extra-weft on a pit loom in a single village. A registered geographical indication.
Nalanda and Gaya handloom cottonNalanda, Gaya
Plain cotton woven for dhoti, gamchha and sari on village pit looms, much reduced but not extinct.
Jewellery
Silver hansuli and payalTikuli, the ornamental forehead discNose ring and jhumkaLac and glass bangles
Traditional dress of Magadh — garments, handloom weaves, GI-tagged textiles and jewellery. (5)