Dressing style of sages, ascetics and priests

[Full title: Dressing style of Men: Sages, ascetics and priests]

The dress of sages and priests used to be very simple. They are always seen with a lower garment reaching to the ankles and fastened with a kati-vastra by means of a knot in the middle, instead of a kati-bandha as seen in the sculptures of deities and upper-classes. The upper portion of the body is usually bare and is sometimes adored by a vastra-yajnopavita or an uttariya folded and worn in that fashion. Such a depiction of a sage can be seen in many rock-cut cave temples (fig. 104), rathas, smaller and larger Bhagiratha penance (fig. 105) as well as in structural temples of the age. It is difficult to exactly differentiate in the sculptural art of this period, between a priest and a sage. One such representation of a Saivaite priest (fig. 3) was identified by K. R. Srinivasan^[1] on the eastern face of the second tala of Dharmaraja ratha. The dress shows all similarity with that of a sage and the tuft of hair at the apex of the cleanly shaven head facilitated the identification. The Vaikunthaperumal temple at Kanchipuram also has a few depictions of sages or priests (fig. 4) identified with their bearded appearance, matted hair and a lower garment, which covered from waist to anklet, tied in the kachchha method.

An ascetic can be differentiated from a priest or a sage from the scantiness of the dress, as it is known that the main requirement of a person to be an ascetic is the renunciation of all materialistic things. The eastern face of the Dharmaraj-ratha, in its second tala has a yal bearing male figure (fig. 5), wearing only a kaupina around his waist. He can be identified either as an ascetic or a bard (Panan) going about and singing songs in praise of god or the ruler. It is interesting to note here that several images of Siva depicted in various forms on the same ratha also wear a kaupina like garment, which indicates His ascetic nature. Similarly the larger Bhagiratha penance panel depicts Bhagiratha (fig. 106) leading an ascetic life and he also wears only a kaupina to cover his body.