traditional indian textiles:kashmir shawls

TDD-101 13th August 2000

Dr. Parul Bhatnabgar

Dr. Parul Bhatnagar [email protected]

Dayalbagh Educational Institute (Deemed University)

Agra, India

Traditional Textile Of India THE KASHMIR TEXTILES

Kashmir Textiles Namdas, Gubbas.

Dr. Parul Bhatnagar 2

Kashmir was a pivotal point, through which the wealth, knowledge, and products of

ancient India passed to the world although Islam and its enduring influence in Kashmir took

root only in the 14th

century. By the time of the Mughals the influence of Persian and Middle

Eastern arts was considerable and is still evident in Kashmir's crafts. Kashmir was most

famous for its intricately woven and embroidered shawls, which for centuries were a

cornerstone of European fashion until the invention of Jacquard looms enabled the production

of less expensive paisley shawls. Thirty thousand rural workers still weave and embroider

Kashmiri shawls, which remain a status symbol in India. Another forty thousand weavers

produce hand-woven fabrics, and the total output makes Kashmir one of India’s leading

producers of handloom textiles. Men wear shawls with patterns expressed in tapestry weave

over a twilled ground, mostly made of Pashmina, goat's wool.

The Kashmir shawls are definitely pre-Mughal in origin and design; India is the probable

home of the shawl as an article of personal wear as used today around the shoulders.

The Emperor Akabar was a great admirer of the shawls of Kashmir it was he who began

the fashion of wearing them in duplicate, sewn back to back, so that the under surfaces of the

shawls were never seen (Do-shalla). During that time the most desired shawls were those

worked in gold and silver thread or shawls with border ornamented with fringes of gold,

silver and silk thread.

The majority of the woollen fabrics of Kashmir, and particularly the best quality shawls,

were and are still made of Pashm or Pashmina, which is the wool of the Capra hircus, a

species of the wild Asian mountain goat. Hence the shawls came to be called Pashmina. The

fine fleece used for the shawls is that which grows under the rough, woolly, outer coat of the

animal; that from the under-belly, which is shed on the approach of hot weather. Materials of

an inferior grade were of the wool of the wild Himalayan mountain sheep or the Himalayan

Ibex. However, the best fleece - soft, silky and warm is of the wild goats, and painstakingly

gathered from shrubs and rough rocks against which the animals rub off their fleece on the

approach of summer. This was undoubtedly the soft fleece wool from which were made the

famous and much coveted ‘ring shawls’ in Mughal times unfortunately very inferior and

second rate wool taken from domesticated sheep and goats provide most of the wool used

today on the looms of Kashmir.



The chief types of Kashmir shawls are the Do-shala (twin-shawls) and the Chaddar-rumal

or Kasaba. As the name designates, the former are always sold in pairs there being many

varieties of them. In the Khali-matan the central field is quite plain and without any

ornamentation. The Char-bagan is made up of four pieces in different colours neatly joined

together; the central fluid of the shawl is embellished with a medallion of flowers. However,

when the field is ornamented with flowers in the four corners we have the Kunj.

The Do-rukha, a woven shawl that is so done as to produce the same effect on both sides.

This is a unique piece of craftsmanship, in which a multi-coloured pattern scheme is woven

all over the surface, and after the shawl is completed, the Rafugar or expert embroiderer

works the outlines of the motifs in darker shades to bring into relief the beauty of design. This

attractive mode of craftsmanship not only produces a shawl, which is reversible because of

the perfect workmanship on both sides, but it combines the crafts of both weave and

embroidery. Perhaps the one in most demand is the Shahpasand (King’s Choice), in which

the decorated borders at the ends of the shawls are broader than those on the sides.

Perhaps the most characteristic of the Kashmir shawls is the one made like patchwork.

The patterns are woven on the looms in long strips, about twelve to eighteen inches in length

and from half to two inches in width. These design strips, made on very simple and primitive

looms, are next cut to the required lengths and very neatly and expertly hand sewn together

with almost invisible stitches and finally joined by sewing to a plain central field piece. As a

variation, pieces may be separately woven, cut up in various shapes of differing sizes and as

before expertly sewn together and them further elaborated with embroidery but there is a

difference between these two types, while the patchwork loom shawls are made up from

separate narrow strips, the patchwork embroidered shawls consists of a certain number of

irregularly shaped pieces joined together, each one balancing the predominant colour scheme

of the shawl.

The colours most commonly seen in Kashmir shawls are yellow, white, black, blue, green,

purple, crimson and scarlet. The design motif are usually formalised imitations of Nature

quite often the leaf of the Chenar tree so abundant of growth in the high altitude of this

northern state, apple blossoms, the almond, the tulip, and occasionally the fruits of the region,

when birds appear in the mountain, they are always in a riot of rich colours.



Before passing on to the embroidered shawls, the Jamiawar of Kashmir, which also is a

loom designed but brocaded woollen fabric deserves a brief mention. The Jamiavars are of

fixed length, that is they are available only as cut pieces, with the ends woven into a fringe

from the warp threads themselves; but in the Jamiavars produced in Amritsar and Ludhlana

the fringe is separately made and ultimately sewn on. And therein lie the difference- and a

clue to identification.

The Jamiawar is woven wholly of wool or with some cotton mixture; but the floral

design and brocaded parts are invariably in silk or Pashmina wool. Many designs are found in

this woollen brocaded material but the floral motif is dominant large flower sprays and the

small-flower. The Jaldars are the net-like patterns. The original earliest designs were

generally striped with the floral foliage on them. Some of the recent designs are unfortunately

artistically cheap more like inferior wallpaper, which they try to imitate. A different design,

consisting of alternate narrow and wide stripes, in rich shades of red (sometimes blue) and

with floral scrolls on white or yellow ground originated in Jabalpur.

Early in the nineteenth century there originated the needle-worked Amlikar or Amli, a

shawl embroidered almost all over with the needle on a plain woven ground. But this was no

sudden innovation or the creation of a new style, as the needle-embroidered shawls was

known in Kashmir even before this time.

The embroidery stitch employed is rather like parallel darning stitch. The embroidery

thread is made to nip up the warp thread, but it is rarely allowed to penetrate the entire fabric.

This clever mode of work makes the embroidery seem if produced actually on the loom. The

outlines of the design are further touched up and accentuate with silk or woollen thread of

different colours run round the finer details; the stitch used for this is like an obliquely

overlapping darn stitch as a matter of fact, all the stitches used are so minute and fine that

individually they can be seen with the unaided eye only with difficulty. Again, when

Pashmina wool is used for the embroidery work, it is made to blend so intimately with the

texture of the basic shawl material that it would be difficult to insert even a fine needle

between the embroidery stitches and the basic fabric.



Soft, fleece and warm, elegant and dignified and sober. Pure like the clean white tops of

the Himalayan ranges, such were the shawls of Kashmir, a land of skilled craftsmanship, a

land of flowers and divine beauty and the eternal snows.

Gubbas

The basic material for a gubba is milled blanket dyed in plain colour. Embroidery is bold

and vivid in designing and done with woollen or cotton threads. Gubbas have more of a folk

flavour: blankets cut and patched into geometric patterns, with limited, embroidery on joining

and open space. It is more of appliqué work. Colours are bright and attractive. They are cheep

and used for dewan covering or floor covering like Namdas.

traditional indian textiles:kashmir shawls

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