The set of robes worn by a fully ordained Theravada monk or nun is not casual dress but a garment prescribed in exact detail by the monastic code, and its form carries the memory of renunciation.
The triple robe
The core of the set is the triple robe: the antaravasaka worn at the waist, the uttarasanga over the upper body, and the doubled outer robe, the sanghati. The Vinaya prescribes how the robes are cut, dyed and worn, and the characteristic patchwork of the cloth, sewn from panels in the pattern of a field, recalls the origin of the monastic robe in cloth pieced together from discarded rags as a sign that the wearer has renounced ordinary possessions. The colour, in the ochre and brown range, is itself a mark of the renunciant.
Made, given and kept
A monk owns very little, and the robes are among the few things he possesses; they are formally determined at ordination and are received from the lay community, whose gift of cloth and of the robes is one of the central acts of merit in Theravada practice. The making of a robe from donated cloth within a single day, the kathina, is a communal event at the close of the rains retreat. The robe therefore ties the monastic and the lay together at the point of the monk greatest simplicity, the garment of one who owns almost nothing being provided by those who own more.