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Early Indian literature, speaks of the bhairnivasni, a skirt like garment, which evolved from the antariya, a simple tube shaped garment. This was stitched on one side, gathered and held at the waist by a girdle. Women wore it as a lower garment. It later evolved into a skirt with a drawstring called the ghaghri. The ghaghri was a narrow skirt, made from five and a half meters of fabric, the same length as the original antariya. The skirt in India is known by many different names, depending on the regional style, the most popular, by far, being the ghaghra.It was the flare that made the ghaghra such a sumptuous garment and one so captivating that it was celebrated both in poetry and art. The ghaghra is really a long skirt, which has the construction of a simple gathered skirt or a flared gored skirt. It covers the legs fully or partially, depending on the norms of propriety among different ethnic groups, although a long ghaghra usually relates to more puritanical modesty. Another term used was the lehenga, a compound of the Sanskrit words lanka (waist) and anga (body or limb). The lehenga is generally associated with a panelled skirt that is narrower than the ghaghra. However, there are no rigid definitions and the terms have found more generic usages. This and other styles of the skirt are very popular in North India. Changing fashions and foreign influences probably transformed this straight, simple garment into a full panelled skirt. Regional differences developed, with variations in length and the number and shape of panels, which were eight rectangular or triangular. The most voluminous skirts could be made up of over 20 meters of cloth.