Dupatta

The dupattā, also called chunni, chunari, chundari, lugda, rao/rawo, gandhi, pothi, orna, and odhni is a long shawl-like scarf traditionally worn by women in the Indian subcontinent.

Early evidence of the dupatta can be traced to the Indus valley civilization, where the sculpture of a priest-king whose left shoulder is covered with some kind of a shawl-like scarf suggests that the use of the dupatta dates back to this early Indic culture.

[4][5] Early Sanskrit literature has a wide vocabulary of terms for the veils and scarfs used by women during the ancient period, such as avagunthana (cloak-veil), uttariya (shoulder-veil), mukha-pata (face-veil), and siro-vastra (head-veil).

A dupatta is traditionally worn over the left shoulder in India, and tucked in to a skirt on the opposite side.

A modern variation is to allow the length of the dupatta to drape elegantly around the waist and through the arms at the front.