The Significance of Anklets in Indian Culture: Payal, Kolusu and the Story Behind Them

There is an eight-thousand-year-old habit behind the payal.

Anklets and toe rings have been worn on the Indian subcontinent since the Neolithic period, and they appear in the archaeology of Mehrgarh and the Indus Valley long before most other jewellery forms we still wear. Very few ornaments anywhere have that kind of continuity.

Most of what gets written about anklets stops at "they symbolise femininity and grace." That is true and it is not very interesting. The more interesting questions are the ones underneath. Why silver and not gold, when Indian jewellery is otherwise so fond of gold? Why does the same object have six different names across the country? And why is one of the great epics of Tamil literature named after an anklet?

Why the Anklet Is Always Silver

This is the single most revealing thing about the payal, and it is usually mentioned in one line and never explained.

In much of Indian tradition, gold carries an association with Lakshmi. Because of that association, convention holds that gold is not worn below the waist. It is for the ears, the neck, the wrists, the upper body. Silver takes the lower half: the ankles and the toes.

That one convention explains the entire category. It is why anklets are silver across communities that could well afford gold ones. It is why a bride wearing gold from head to waist will still wear silver at her feet. And it is why the payal has stayed a silver object for thousands of years while almost everything else in Indian jewellery moved toward gold.

You will still find gold anklets sold today, and plenty of families are relaxed about it. But the convention is old, it is widely held, and it is the reason the tradition looks the way it does.

There is a practical middle ground that did not exist a generation ago. A gold-plated silver anklet gives the warmth of gold over a sterling silver base, which suits anyone who likes the colour but wants to keep to the convention underneath.

The Tamil Epic Named After an Anklet

One of the Five Great Epics of Tamil literature is called the Silappatikaram. The title is a compound of two words: silambu, meaning anklet, and adikaram, meaning the story about. It translates, literally, as The Tale of an Anklet.

It was composed somewhere between the second and sixth century CE and is attributed to Ilango Adigal, a Chera prince who became a Jain monk. R. Parthasarathy, who translated it into English, describes it as being to Tamil culture what the Iliad is to Greek culture.

And the anklet is not decoration in it. The anklet is the plot.

The story follows Kannagi and her husband Kovalan. Having lost his money, Kovalan takes one of Kannagi's anklets to Madurai to sell and start again. The queen's anklet has been stolen, Kovalan is accused of the theft, and the king has him executed without trial.

Kannagi goes to the court carrying the second anklet of the pair. She breaks it open in front of the king. The queen's anklets contained pearls. Kannagi's contain rubies. The evidence is inside the object itself, and with it the king's judgement collapses.

The reason this matters for anyone interested in Indian jewellery is that it tells you how seriously the anklet was taken. It was personal enough to identify a woman, valuable enough to fund a new business, and specific enough to serve as legal proof. That is a very long way from an accessory.

The Ministry of Culture's National Virtual Library of India has a fuller account of the epic and the anklet's role in it if you want to read further.

What It Is Called Across India

The object is the same across the country. The name is not.

The names are worth knowing for a practical reason as well as a cultural one. If you are buying for someone from a different part of the country, or searching for a particular regional style, the local word will usually get you closer than the English one.

The designs differ too. A North Indian payal tends to be a lighter chain, often with small bells. A Tamil kolusu is frequently heavier, in solid silver with a broader link. Ghungroo anklets, with larger and louder bells, belong to classical dance, where the sound is part of the performance rather than a by-product of it.

What the Sound Was Actually For

Every guide mentions that anklets make a sound. Very few explain why that mattered.

In large joint family households, where several generations shared a home and conventions about privacy between family members were carefully observed, the sound of a payal announced that a woman was approaching before she entered a room. It gave everyone a moment. For a young bride in a new home it meant she never arrived unannounced. For an older woman, the same sound carried a different weight entirely, and people stood or made room.

It was a signal, in other words, and a useful one. The sound did social work in a specific kind of house.

That function has largely gone, because the houses have changed. What remains is the association itself, which is why the sound of a payal still reads as familiar and domestic to most Indians even when nobody is being announced.

The Anklet in Marriage

In Hindu tradition, the payal is counted among the solah shringar, the sixteen adornments of a married woman, alongside the bindi, sindoor, bangles and the rest. In many communities it is given to a bride as part of her wedding jewellery, and in South India a silver anklet is often paired with toe rings as a set.

Anklets are also given to children, which is worth noting because it complicates the marriage association. Babies and young children are given light silver anklets with small bells, partly as a blessing and partly because a crawling child who jingles is a child you can locate. Anyone who grew up in an Indian household will recognise that sound.

So the payal spans a life rather than marking a single moment in it, which is a large part of why it is so often passed down. An anklet inherited from a grandmother carries more than its silver weight.

Protection, and the Nazariya

Alongside the marriage associations sits a separate and older idea: that a child or a young woman should be protected from nazar, the ill effect of another person's envious attention.

The traditional form is a black thread tied at the ankle, or black beads worn against the skin. The idea is that the black draws the eye and absorbs the attention that would otherwise fall on the wearer. It is one of the most widely observed customs in Indian households and one of the least formal, practised across religions and regions with very little consistency about how.

Modern pieces have taken the same idea into silver. A silver evil eye anklet or a nazariya anklet combining black beads with an evil eye charm carry the custom in a form that suits daily wear.

Whether you treat it as protection or simply as a thread of continuity with how your family has always done things, the custom is doing something real either way.

How Anklets Are Worn Now

Three things have changed, and one has not.

Both ankles or one. Traditionally anklets were worn as a pair, and in most of the traditional contexts above they still are. Wearing a single anklet is a more recent, largely urban choice and carries no particular meaning. If you like how one looks, wear one.

Married or not. The association with marriage is real but it was never exclusive. Unmarried women and girls have worn anklets throughout, and in cities today the question rarely comes up at all.

With whatever you are wearing. A payal was a saree and salwar object. It now appears with jeans, with dresses, and on holiday, which is a genuine departure and has driven most of the design change in the last decade. Fine chains, charm anklets and layered styles exist because of it.

And the thing that has not changed: it is still silver. The designs have moved a long way and the convention underneath has not.

For a heavier traditional look, a textured mesh anklet has the broad antique character that suits ethnic wear, while a meenakari-inspired enamel bead anklet carries the colour tradition of Rajasthani enamel work in a lighter modern form. The full range sits in our silver anklets collection.