Leather

Considered an impure substance by
many traditional Hindus, because it is
the product of a dead animal. They
believe that leather is an appropriate
material for shoes, however, because the
feet are deemed the lowest and most
impure part of the body. For this reason,
many people put on their shoes by slipping their feet into them without using
their hands, thus avoiding touching the
leather with a higher part of the body.
Leather’s associations with ritual impurity (ashaucha) make it inappropriate
for other sorts of clothing—clothing
which the hot Indian climate would render problematic—although now it is
sometimes used for handbags and briefcases. In earlier times people who
wished to avoid leather would wear
wooden clogs instead; in modern times,
footwear options also include plastic,
rubber, and canvas.
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Lankalakshmi