Re: henna
Posted by Catherine Cartwright Jones on March 03, 2000 at 13:47:49:
In Reply to: henna posted by Milly on March 03, 2000 at 09:07:56:
I haven't been able to find artifacts showing how henna was used in
India before 400 CE, though it must have been around. Men and women,
rich and poor, seem to have been using it occasionally prior to 400
CE.
In India, by 400 CE, pictorial artifacts show men, women, deities,
demons, kings and serving maids all occasionally hennaed. However,
they didn't use any patterns, (just dip henna) and were just as likely
to chalk their palms white as to henna them. Among 1000 figures in
the Ajanta caves, you are likely to see 25 or so with henna on their
hands, so henna may not have been very common or special. The way it's
used there seems to indicate that it wasn't especially for women,
certainly not sacred, maybe not even more than just being a nice
alternative in getting dressed up in the morning.
Henna was used fairly consistantly on the hands of Buddhas and
Boddhisattvas from 400 CE to 900 CE in India .... but it was used on
many other figures, too, so it wasn't special to the Buddha. It
certainly was not particularly associated with brides at that time.
By 1300 CE India , most Hindu deities, and most women are portrayed
with henna occasionally .... but again, not in patterns, and it
doesn't appear that the henna was more special than just looking
nicely dressed. It may have been considered a lucky, auspicious sort
of cosmetic, but there's not much indication that it was very
significant beyond it being a really nice special thing to do.
After the Mughal invasions and expansion around 1500 CE, the attitude
towards henna changed in India. Islam had more specific traditions
associated with henna, that it was for brides, for valour (many
more)..... and patterned henna (rather than dip henna) had been used
the countries to the west of India for millenia (possibly as far back
as 6000 BCE in Anatolia). It looks like the night of the henna
traditions, and patterned henna, came into India with Islam.
A Hindu wedding painted in 1600 shows the bride's fingers hennaed, but
her henna is identical to everyone else's in the wedding, and is also
identical to another picture done at the same time where serving
girls, old women, and married women all have exactly the same henna
finger dip pattern. So ... henna doesn't seem to have had any special
significance for a Hindu bride 4 centuries back, it was just a nice,
auspicious, beautiful thing to do for your hands.
In Indian Islamic weddings, by 1700 CE, the bride had patterned henna,
and a great deal of fuss was made about hennaeing the bride before her
wedding. Patterned henna for brides and the night of the henna
tradition dates back to at least 2000 BCE in the Eastern
Mediterranean. So, though the night of the henna party is now
frequently associated with India, and is certainly an important part
of life there, it seems to have become popular in India 3500 years
after it began in Anatolia and Syria.
By the 1800's, Indian women were more likely to have patterned henna,
and since then, henna seems to have acquired additional folkloric
significance and traditions, particularly bridal, and fertility
traditions. The rest of the complex and beautiful array of patterns
and beliefs that are now part of Indian henna seem have grown up in
the fairly recent period since 1500. From 1700 on , henna as an art
form fell out of fashion in the countries to the west, and developed
into a vary high art form in India. That's why people tend to
associate henna with India today.