During the ancient age in India, the Raja Maharajas established the trend of wearing heavy jewellery made of gold and silver. Jewellery was not restricted to women only but the men also preferred to adorn themselves with junk jewellery. It was not only the fact of self adornment but also to flaunt one’s riches and prowess. Through the distant ages Jewellery had been playing the role of decorating and bedecking not only the human body but also the deities. The ornaments are used for decorating hair, neck, ears, wrists, arms and ankles, waist and toes.

According to the ancient history, silver was discovered after the discovery of copper and gold metal and the silver jewelleries are sought after since the ancient era. The excavations from Indus Valley Civilisation stand as evidences of the rich metallurgical past. Apart from using various other metals, the inhabitants of Indus Valley used silver at a large for creating precious objects namely seals, vessels, vases, brooches and pendants. People of ancient times used silver for making their personal ornaments including some other things namely coins for monetary exchanges, weapons, bracelets etc. The trend of making and beautifying vessels with silver, creating silver vessels and silver jewellery was started afresh during the time of 4th Century B.C and this trend of silver metal continued till the termination period Roman Empire. It has also been evidenced that white gold is the blend of silver and gold.

Silver Jewellery was generally used by the poor classes. Western India is abundant in silver and keeps a good trade relation ship with Arabia, the Persian Gulf, the Middle East and East Africa. Each state of India has their distinct style of making metal jewelleries and sometimes the silver jewelleries are also preferred by the local people of the states. Some of the silver jewelleries art is figurative like the hero pendant of Rajasthan and the ‘makara’ which is the head endings on bangles. Most of the designs of Western India’s abstract and geometric designs are achieved through the building up of granulation and embossing. Filigree silver is a specialty of Kashmir, parts of West Bengal and Cuttack in Orissa. Filigree is known as ‘tarkashi’ in Cuttack. Necklaces of filigree are admired in Lucknow and Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh and are considered as one of the most remarkable creations of the silver Jewellery art in India.

Ankle chains made of silver are worn by the common people all over India and are an example of silver Jewellery art. The ankle chains are sometime decorated with decorative bells, balls, or tiny heart-shaped pendants. Apart from these, silver is also used for beautiful bangles, earrings studded with precious and semi precious stones, funky rings, trendy necklace etc.

Wearing Jewellery is a social custom not only for the social occasions but also for the social requirement. Now a days the trend of junk Jewellery has become popular and women who don’t prefer to wear traditional metal jewelleries for regular use they generally opt for more trendy and gorgeous looking modern metal wares which are found in ample amount and are highly praised for their stunning look. Due to the recent vogue of costume jewelleries, silver is also reckoned as an important and most sought after metal for creating chunky and trendy, ethnic and traditional regular jewelleries that are worn frequently for the elegant sheen of the creations and the multipurpose use they serve. Even in recent times, the blend of tribal, traditional and local styles are amalgamated to bring a new pattern of jewellery creation.