TEMPLE JEWELRY

Temple Jewelry belongs to the tradition of India, especially southern part of India. Olden days, Temple jewellery was worn by only Devadasi girls who perform dance in temple and in Durbars. These days, it is not uncommon to see south Indian brides wearing Temple Jewellery for their weddings. So today, one can say the Temple Jewellery is traditional South Indian jewellery. The origin of Temple Jewellery dates back to 12th century. This was the period of famous Dravidian Tamil Dynasty known as “Chozha kulam” who ruled southern part of India. Chozha kings gave very importance to cultural development and most of the of the temple jewelry today are similar to the designs in the heavily ornamented pillars with accurate details and rich sculpted walls of many south Indian Temples, especially ones in Thanjavur.

Today temple jewelry is made of a variety of metals. Originally it was made of gold with ruby, emerald & pearls and was used by the devadasi girls who danced in Temple and Durbars. Today Temple jewellery is mostly associated with Bharatanatyam dance. There are different types of Temple Jewellery manufactured today. Three of them are widely sold all over the world. Real Temple Jewellery, Imitation temple Jewellery and stone type temple jewelry Most of the real temple is made in Nagercoil, a southern city in Tamilnadu. These designs are quite unique which makes them more popular and adorable. These are made with Silver and have a coating of 22 Ct Gold over it. First the base is made with silver and this is initially plated with Gold. Then natural glue is heated and used to fix the green and maroon stones over the base. To fill the gap between the silver base and stones, and to make sure the stones stay in it’s place, a thin foil of Gold tightly squeezed into the gap. This Gold foil covers the entire jewelry and gives it a very appealing look because what you see is real gold. These are expensive and may not be suitable for young children. Less expensive imitation temple jewellery is also available on the market for those ones who are not yet sure about pursuing a career in dance.

The most common imitation temple jewelry has 11 different ornaments. These are Long chain, Short necklace, Sun/Moon, Nethichutti, Mattal, Jimikki, Belt, Vanki, Rakkodi, Nath/Bullakku and bangles. Short necklace is also known as choker in some parts of India. The dance belt is more commonly known as oddiyanam in southern part of the country. The temple jewelry sets are becoming more popular and nowadays it is a common wedding jewelry for south IndianMost of the Indian classical dancers also wear ankle bells during dance performance. Ankle bells are also called Salangai (in Tamil) or Chilanka (in Malayalam).

There are several other ornaments and dance make-up accessories a Bharatanatyam dancer need apart from these ornaments. Kunjalam is another very important ornament used to decorate the hair of the dancer. Kunjalam adds a special look to a dancers beautiful long hair. Moreover, since it hangs at the end of the hair, the dance always have a control over his/her long hair.