Traditional Indian Silver Jewellery

Silver jewellery has a vigour and liveliness all its own, many of its designs preserving an antique originality. If gold was the preferred metal of the affluent, silver was the staple of the rural and tribal areas. It was a means of saving money, and an indication of a person's wealth. The jewellery was a mobile "bank", serving as both adornment to be kept on the person and a stand by in times of need. This is perhaps one reason why the jewellery appears so heavy and chunky.

Areas, and communities within areas, had their own distinctive design ocabularies, and local silversmiths fashioned the metal into beaded chokers, long ropes of chains, heavy collars, pendant boxes, a huge variety of bangles, bracelets, wristlets and amulets, nose rings and of course anklets. Of anklets alone, there is an almost bewildering range which seems to go from heavy to heaviest! So large are some anklets that you would think they make silver was studded with semi-precious stones like turquoise, coral or agate. And in the dry land of Banni in Kutch, the dun landscape is like a backdrop for some of the most spectacular jewellery in India. Here, as elsewhere, the jewellery, the clothes, the embroideries, are all social identifiers, indicating where the woman is from to what caste she belongs and whether she is married.The irony of this poem may make you smile, but contrary to the poet's belief it is a fact that gems exert a strange magnetic pull. Jewellery exhibitions the world over attract adiences who do indeed look twice at "girl-less gems", as much for their beauty and flawlessness as for their rarity and thus value.