8 textiles · cotton: it has been cultivated in india since the harappan civilisation. raw cotton...

Textiles are a part of Indiaís history ó its past, present,and future. Indian textiles were found in the tombs of theEgyptian Pharaohs, they were a sought-after export toancient Greece and Rome, they also became part of thefashionable attire of both European and Mughal courts.Suppressing and replacing the Indian handloom cottontrade with mill-made alternatives was a key factor of theBritish Industrial Revolution. That is the reason Gandhimade handspun khadi a symbol of the Indian Independencemovement. Even today, millions of craftspeople all overIndia produce extraordinary traditional textiles that appealto the international market.

Weaving a TraditionSathya sat at the bigwooden loom, throwing theshuttle through the shiningsilk threads stretched on itsframe. As he wove the warpand weft together, the fabricthat unfolded was aKanjeevaram silk saree,purple and red, with goldtigers, elephants andpeacocks dancing togetheron its resplendent pallav.The ëthak-thakí sound of theshuttle as it moved to andfro had always been part ofhis life. His father, and hisfatherís father, and hisfatherís fatherís father, hadall woven sarees on thesame family loomóas hadtheir forefathers as far backas memory could stretch.

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Brocade work, Varanasi

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Sathya was 17. He had learnt to weave when he was eight,though he longed to play football with the other village boys.New laws do not allow children below fourteen years of age towork. But everyone in his village was involved in weaving.The women spun the thread, and stretched the warp on theloom. The village dyers and washermen dyed the yarn inwonderful colours, starched, and sized the finished fabric.Traders came to the village from all over India to buy thesarees, while other traders from Surat brought the gold zarithread with which they were woven. The village economydepended on women continuing to wear these traditionalsarees for weddings, festivals, and special occasions. Sathyaísfather had a picture cut-out from a magazine of a famous filmstar in one of his sarees.

Sathyaís grandfather was now too frail and blind to weavethe intricate sarees. He told Sathya stories of the days, manyhundred years ago, when South Indian weavers were one ofthe richest communities in India. Their wealth built the hugetemples and funded royal armies.

Whole communities were known for their weaving skills, andtheir surnames proudly denoted their trade ó Vankars inGujarat, Ansaris in UP, Mehers in Orissa ó just as the KutchiKhatris were dyers and printers.

Sathya knows that these days even highly skilled weaversare desperately poor, even though their sarees are worn onlyby the very rich. Weavers depend on traders for loans in orderto pay for the expensive silk and gold yarn from which thesarees are woven. Machine-made sarees made in the bigindustrial mills and cheap synthetic silk copies from China aretaking over the market.Kanjeevaram saree,

Tamil Nadu

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Indian hand-crafted textiles are unique today for theirvariety and beauty. This is a living craft, practised by millionsof craftspeople ó many in their teens and twenties. No othercountry in the world has a weaving tradition that goes backthousands of years and is still part of the mainstream economy.Sathya and other young craftspeople like him make Indiaspecial and proud.

Yarn, Threads and FibresIn the story about Sathya you read about many aspects ofweaving. You came across terms like ëyarní, ëloomí andëshuttleí, ëwarpí and ëweftí, ëstarchingí and ësizingí, ëtradersíand ëweaversí. Some of the fibres commonly used in textileweaving are:

♦ cotton♦ silk♦ wool♦ mixture of the above♦ gold and silver thread, etc.

Cotton: It has been cultivated in India since the HarappanCivilisation. Raw cotton is a round fluffy white ball growingon a bush about three feet high. Earth, seeds and otherimpurities are removed from the cotton balls by ginning.The loose fibres of cotton are collected and bowed with abow made of canes and the string of the mid-rib of a bananaleaf. The vibration of the string fluffs and loosens the cotton.It is spun on a charkha or spinning wheel to the requiredthickness and texture and is then ready for weaving.

Warli representation ofgathering and spinning

cotton, Maharashtra

A variety of cotton fabrics were woven all over the country,ranging from course, strong gauzes to the finest of muslins,that represent the highest achievement of the cotton-weaving industry in India.

Indian muslins were used as shrouds for royal Egyptianmummies, and used as garments to adorn Mughalemperors 3000 years later. Delicate muslin cottons weregiven poetic names like ëflowing waterí (abrawan), ëeveningdewí (shabnam), and ëwoven airí (bafthava), by their courtpoets. Now they are commissioned by national andinternational designers!

Cotton Shawl, Gujarat


Secret of Silk

Some textile traditions came to us from other parts of the worldójustas silk came to India from China. According to legend, the Chinese hadbanned the export of silk worms; however, they were smuggled intoIndia by Chinese Buddhist monks in the hollow shafts of their canewalking sticks.

The thread is classified by its thickness: the thinner thethread, the higher the number of counts, and the finer thefabric. Its fineness and its absorption quality make it anideal fabric for the heat of the Indian summer.

Silk: It is made from the cocoon of a cream-coloured mothwhich feeds on the leaves of the mulberry tree. Thecaterpillar of the silk moth spins an oval cocoon of veryfine silk, the size of a pigeonís egg. The silk is generallyyellow, but sometimes white.

About 1600 silk worms produce nearly 500 grams of silkand one hectare of land produces enough mulberry leavesto feed caterpillars that can produce 46 kg of silk. It takesabout seven days for the cocoon to be fully spun roundwith silk.

The cocoons are collected and sorted into different qualitiesand then boiled. The silk thread is reeled and twisted, driedand polished. It is then wound on a spindle and spun. Thesoftness, the lustre and the tensile quality of silk make itone of the most prized materials for weaving fabrics.

Silk cocoon

Kanjeevaram saree,Tamil Nadu

Mashru and Himru, Gujarat

Ikat silk saree, Orissa

Mix of Silk and Cotton: Another glorious fabric is mashru,a lustrous weave from Gujarat, patterned in brilliantmulti-coloured stripes, or dots as fine as rice grains.Though it appears like silk it is not really silk. Mashru,and himru, have a twisted weave with a silk underside toreplicate the look and feel of satin while technicallyremaining cotton.

Tussar, Eri and Moga: India is the only source of tussarsilk that comes from the Antheria Assamia moth, whichfeeds on the leaves of the Som and Wali trees. Tussar silkhas a coarse, uneven texture and a slightly yellowishbrown colour. Since it is less strong in texture and cannotbe refined it does not have the same sheen or fineness asmulberry silk.

Women weavers of Assam make their traditional mekla-chador costumes with golden moga and eri silk, whichcome from worms that feed on Ashoka and castor leavesrather than mulberry leaves.

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Wool: It is spun from the fleece of animals. Sheep wool isthe most common, but in India goat wool, camel hair, andibex hair is also used. In North India the angora rabbit isbred for its fine, long, very soft and silky hair. Its warmth,tensile strength and resistance to fire, give this wool itsspecial quality.

The fame of the Kashmiri Jamawar shawl can be gaugedfrom the fact that the English word ëshawlí is derived from thePersian ëshalíóa length of woven woollen fabric. Shawl weavingin Kashmir was introduced by the ruler Zain-ul-Abidin in thefifteenth century bringing in Turkistan weavers to teachthe twill tapestry technique to local weavers. As many asfifty colours were used on one shawl.

The rough goat wool dhablas worn by shepherds andcamel herders in Kutch and the Thar Desert have beenreinvented into wonderful contemporary shawls, homefurnishings and throws. Today designers are translatingindigenous motifs and colours from tribal shawls of theNorth-east and Kinnauri shawls of Himachal into softermerino and sheep wool.

Jamawar shawl, Kashmir

The celebrated Kashmiri shahtoosh ëring shawlí made from the fleece ofthe wild Himalayan ibex is so fine that a metre of this woollen shawlcan pass through a manís signet ring. Production and sale is bannedtoday for ecological reasons and to prevent the extinction of the ibex.Weaving it was a fine art, wearing it now a forbidden luxury.

Woollen shawls fromdifferent states of India


Textile TechniquesIndian textiles may be divided into two groups: loomdecorated and post-loom decorated fabrics.

Loom-decorated fabrics are provided with artistictreatment when on the loom.

Post-loom decorated fabrics are textiles in which artistictreatment is given after it is woven. In other words, plaintextiles are decorated with techniques such as:

♦ dyeing; tie and dye♦ hand printing; hand painting♦ embroidery♦ patchwork and appliquÈ

Working at a loom

Tie and dye

Hand painting

Loom-decorated fabric

AppliquÈEmbroidery

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Loom-decorated Fabrics: In differentstates of India handloom weaving is doneon a variety of looms such as:

♦ throw-shuttle loom♦ fly-shuttle loom♦ loin loom♦ pit loom♦ jacquard

The art of weaving is governed by threemovements ó shedding, picking andbeating.

The shedding movement consists ofmoving the treadle with the feet, to makethe alternate warp threads open for theshuttle.

The picking movement propels theshuttle to run across to the other side.

The beating movement consists ofpatting the weft thread into place.

As the process is repeated, the weftthread passes from side to side, over oneset of warp threads and under the other.These movements are repeated to producethe basic fabric. Textures are producedby varying the count of the warp threads,and by weaving them tightly or loosely.Patterns can be produced with theintroduction of coloured warp and weft threads.

Women of the North-Eastern states weave bold black,red and white cotton shawls with images of shields, swords,butterflies and snakes, using a narrow loin loom whichthey attach to their waists with straps.

An 80-year -old Manipuri woman wearing a wornhandloom shawl was asked whether she was cold andwhy she did not buy a warm synthetic mill-made sweaterthat was inexpensive and easily available in the market.

Her reply reminds us of so many intangible thingswe disregard: ìIíve spun this with my own hands; mymother and sisters have woven it. The warmth of somany fingers has gone into this. How can a machinemake anything warmer?î

Loom decoration of fabrics


Block Printing

Block-printing is apost-loom method ofdecorating fabric.

Making a block

Wooden blocks

Block printing, as it is practised all over Western and CentralIndia, is described below.

Each design is printed with a series of differentintricately cut wooden blocks.

1. Carving the blocks is itself an artóduta, the block forthe outline, gud, for the background, one block for eachof the other colours. Some designs have as many as sixto eight different colours.

2. The block is dipped in liquid colour, and pressed firmlyonto the specially treated cloth with a little bang of theother hand to make it register evenly.

3. Once the whole cloth has been printed with one block,printing with the next block follows, and then the next,in sequence.

4. Printers have to be careful to place the little marker atthe corner of the block to make sure it doesnít slip andthat each colour fits into the design accurately.

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Distinctive Designs and Techniques

Like weaves and embroideries, block-print designs andcolours have the special stamp of the places from wherethey originate.

Those from Sanganer in Rajasthan have designs thatinclude delicate floral butis in a range of colours.

Farrukhabad of Uttar Pradesh has all-over paisley jaals.Bagh prints from Madhya Pradesh are in dramatic red

and black.Dhamadka of Kutch is famous for its double-sided ajrak,

interlocked hexagonal motifs in shades of indigo, crimsonand black, which requires 15 different processes to achieve.

There are also numerous block-printing techniques ódirect, resist, batik, discharge, khari chhaap (gold andsilver stamping).

In some, the dye is applied directly to the cloth, in others,areas are prevented from getting coloured by the use ofwax, mud, or chemicals. Each technique is distinctive.

Printed motifs

Top left: Bagh,Madhya Pradesh

Bottom left: Dhamadka,Kutch, Gujarat

Top right: Farrukhabad,Uttar Pradesh

Bottom right: Sanganer,Rajasthan

Wooden block ofpaisley motif

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Indian Embroidery

There are shawls from Kashmir that aremagically two-sided with the same designembroidered in different colours on eachside. This is known as do-rukha. A singleshawl may take over two years to complete.

In Kutch in WesternIndia, the women,whether Rabari, Ahir,Mochi, Meghwal,Darbar or Jat, learn toembroider from ayoung age. Theyembroider theirtrousseausóskirts,cholis, veils, quilts,decorative pieces fortheir homes. MostKutchi embroideriesuse wonderful colours ó magenta, emeraldgreen, yellow, and purple. As bright as theirdesert landscape is bleak, their embroideriesare exuberant, with designs of flowers,peacocks, elephants and parrots. Each villageand community in Kutch has its owndistinctive set of stitches and motifs: cross-stitch, satin and herringbone stitch, and avery fine chain stitch done with a hook. Shinymirrors are stitched onto the fabric.

Punjab is famed for its traditionalembroidery called phulkar ióflowering work. Using threads inbrilliant colours like flaming pinks,oranges, mustard yellows andcreams, the reverse satin stitch isdone on a brick-red khadi cloth. An all-over embroidered shawl (dupatta) iscalled a bagh, literally resembling agarden of flowers.

Sujni, from Bihar, is a form ofquilted embroidery with mainlynarrative themes.

The explorer, Marco Polo, said in thethirteenth century about India: ì...embroideryis here produced with more delicacy thananywhere in the worldî.

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There are 22 different chikan stitches. Legend has it that EmpressNoorjehan invented chikan while making a cap for her husband,Jehangir. Chikan-work from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, has manydifferent stitches worked on cotton mull, creating a texturedrelief of flowers, paisleys and stars. The stitches have wonderfulnamesóghas-ki-patti as delicate as grass, murri which looks justlike a grain of rice, and keel, the tip of a nail. The most commonare: bakhia, a herringbone stitch done on the reverse of thematerial so that the design appears like a shadow, tepchi, alinked running stitch, and phanda, a tight round knot, used toform flowers and leaves.

Kantha, embroidery fromBengal, is made ofthousands of fine stitches,giving the fabric a puckeredquilted look. In Bangladeshand India kantha was usedto make quilts and coverlets.Old sarees were foldedtogether and embroideredwith coloured threadspulled from saree borders.Now kantha embroiderersmake sarees and dupattasfor the metro market.

Patchwork and appliquÈ are othertextile skills practised by women allover India. They range from the tinygeometric patchwork gota done inRampur and Lucknow, to the bold,vividly patterned pictorial quilts ofRajasthan and Gujaratóeachbride was expected to have at leasta dozen.

Pipli in Orissa has its ownunique form of appliquÈóbold red,yellow and green dancing elephantsand parrots, outlined with white orblack chain-stitch on equallycolourful base fabric. It wasdeveloped initially to make the rathprocession hangings for the PuriTemple, but is now used for gardenumbrellas, cushions and for otherurban needs.

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The Lambani, Lambada and Banjara gypsy tribes from Andhra Pradeshand Karnataka in South India create spectacular embroidery. Likethe Kutchhis, they too wear wonderful skirts, backless blouses andveils, covered with vibrant, colourful mirrored designs, silver or metalcoins and ornaments at the edges. Their designs are geometric ratherthan naturalistic flowers, birds and animals.

Kasuti of North Karnataka is a combination of four differentstitches, done on the borders, pallav and blouse of the blue-black,indigo-dyed Chandrakala saree, an essential part of the trousseau ofHindu brides of the region. The motifs are pictorial in character: theTulsi plant, temple chariots, eight-pointed stars, parrots, peacocks,bridal palanquins, cradles, and flowering trees.


Did you know...

♦ Colour is the first thing one notices about India. AsKamladevi Chattopadhyaya has said, every colour hasits tradition, emotion, social context and richsignificance.

Red, the colour of marriage and love; orange andsaffron, the colour of the ochre earth and the yogi whorenounces that earth; yellow, the colour of spring,young mango blossoms, of swarms of bees, and ofmating birds. Blue, the colour of indigo, also the colourof Krishna, the cowherd child-godÖ. Even the great godshad their colours ó Brahma was red, Shiva was whiteand Vishnu was blue.

♦ The Vishnudharmottara speaks of five white tones óivory, jasmine, the August moon, August clouds afterrain, and mother-of-pearl.

♦ It is not surprising that by the seventeenth century,William Moorcroft could list over 300 colour shades inuse among the shawl makers of Kashmir.

♦ As early as the first century BCE travellers along theSilk Route recorded fabrics in seven shades of brown,four shades of blue, and four shades of green.

♦ In India colours were made of vegetable and mineralmaterials: pomegranate, lac and madder for the pinks,reds and browns; black from iron castings; myrobalampetals for yellow. Colour was produced from mostunlikely sources: onion skins produced a beautifulreddish brown; pistachio shells, green; glowing lacquerred came from a humble beetle. The concentrated urineof cows fed on mango leaves gave a rich orange yellow.

♦ There is a story of a British Raj billiard table baize(cloth used for billiard tables) which was stolen fromthe Regimental Mess to extract just that exact greenrequired in a Jamawar shawl.

♦ As always, colours, even those derived from mineralsources (silicates and borates of different metallicsaltsó cobalt oxide, potassium chromate andmanganese carbonate) were given poetice names: Ab-e-leher (ripples of water), tote-ka-par (parrotís wing),khoon-e-kabutar (pigeonís blood).


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Home and the MarketIn India, commercial embroidery made for themarket was always done by men. Even chikan workwas traditionally a male preserve, with women onlydoing the coarser filling details. The intricate goldwire and sequin work of Uttar Pradesh (zardozi,kamdani and mukesh) done on a stretched woodenframe, and Kashmiri ari, wool crewel work, tillaand sozni embroidery are still almost exclusivelya male domain.

The lives of my family hangon the thread I embroider.

ñ RAMBA BEN, embroiderycraftswoman from

Banaskantha

Sozni with its intricatedetailing of flora and faunaderives its inspiration from theverdant, flowering beauty of theKashmir valley.

Tilla work is now a majorbusiness for wedding costumes,movie costumes and the fashionramp, and it reflects the gloryof the Mughal court that broughtgold wire work from the MiddleEast and Byzantium.

Today, rural womenembroiderers are finding newempowerment and earning anincome from their embroideryskills in the market. Allover India, be it Bihar orBanaskantha, women nowembroider for a living.


1. Read the verse by Kabir on page 23 and develop yourown poem using images from textile weaving.

2. Look at traditional textiles in your home and develop atable like the following example.

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E X E R C I S E.............................

3. From the farmer who grows the cotton, to theadvertising agency that sells the finished product, thetextile industry employs thousands of people withspecialised skills. Create a profile of each.

4. ìThe bones of the Indian weaver are bleaching the plainsof India,î said William Bentick in 1835. From yourunderstanding of history, describe the impact ofcolonialism on the Indian textile industry.

5. Consider Gandhiji and khadi and explore reasons whyand how the meaning and significance of khadi haschanged over the last 100 years.

6. Consider the clothes worn by members of your extendedfamily. Why do they choose to wear what they wear?Think of caste, religion, age, gender, traditions, andfashion as expressed in the materials, headgear,footwear, costs etc.

7. How is your own philosophy of life reflected in the clothesthat you choose to wear?

8. Which types of embroidery were traditionally done bymen in our country, and why?

9. Research and document the textile traditions of yourstate.

Origin Textile Motif Meaning

Tamil Nadu Silk Flower Life, beauty,auspiciousness

8 textiles · cotton: it has been cultivated in india since the harappan civilisation. raw cotton...

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