Sari in Nepal) and petticoat called "parkar" or "ul-pavadai". In the modern Indian subcontinent, the sari is considered a cultural icon. The word "sari" described in Sanskrit शाटी which means 'strip of cloth' and शाडी or साडी in Pali, and which evolved to in modern Indian languages. The word 'Sattika' is mentioned as describing women's attire in ancient India in Sanskrit literature and Buddhist literature called Jatakas. This could be equivalent to modern day 'Sari'. The term for female bodice, the "choli" evolved from ancient "Stanapatta". Rajatarangini (meaning the 'river of kings'), a tenth-century literary work by Kalhana, states that the
Sari of life and creativity, hence the midriff is to be left bare by the sari. Early Sanskrit literature has a wide vocabulary of terms for the veiling used by women, such as "Avagunthana" (oguntheti/oguṇthikā), meaning cloak-veil, "Uttariya" meaning shoulder-veil, "Mukha-pata" meaning face-veil and "Sirovas-tra" meaning head-veil. In the "Pratimānātaka", a play by Bhāsa describes in context of "Avagunthana" veil that ""ladies may be seen without any blame (for the parties concerned) in a religious session, in marriage festivities, during a calamity and in a forest"". The same sentiment is more generically expressed in later Sanskrit literature. Śūdraka, the author of