History of Fabric in India

Evidence abounds that India of old (circa 5000 BCE) was knowledgeable in the art of cloth making; in the use of looms to make threads and its weaving into fabric. Vedic texts mention spinning and in the selection of material to be used. Elaboration is also found on needle technique and weaving in ancient scripts – the Puranas, the Mahabaratha, the Ramayana and Tamil Sangam writings. Anecdotal evidence however is available from rather unexpected quarters – the tomb of Fostat in Egypt that yielded Gujerati block printed and resist dyed fabrics; bone needles, spindles and fragments of cotton from excavated sites in Harappa and Mohenjo Daro. Graphic descriptions of costume worn by commoners, to the gentry and kings are to be seen on the mural paintings of Buddhistic period in the Ajanta caves, as so too may be evidenced from the stone sculptures of the Gupta and Maurya eras.

Recent archaeological studies show that the Indus Valley civilisation had a robust seafaring tradition that was employed for trade with countries of the Middle East and in later ages, in the opposite direction towards Burma, the Malay peninsula and Indonesia. From these vantage positions trade further extended towards Greece and Rome in the west and towards China in the east. Doubtless too there were the overland routes in use also. It is no surprise therefore that Greco-Roman archives and Chinese manuscripts detail trade with ancient India in cloth and silks, which were commodities highly prized for their design and quality. The great Greek historian Herodotus (circa 500 BCE) reported that Indians possessed "a kind of plant, which, instead of fruit, produced wool, of a finer and better quality than that of sheep, and that of this the Indians made their clothes."

Indian fabric manufacture saw continued growth under the influence of Islamic rule. However it went into eclipse during the colonial period, which initially saw a period of strong exports to Europe of chintz cotton cloth and silk fabrics by the East India Company. After the advent of mechanised spinning in the west there was a reversed export of fabric into India from Great Britain and to disrupt local competition, master weavers of the legendary muslin in Bengal, Orissa and Bihar were incapacitated by having their thumbs severed.

The situation was only reversed with the start of the ‘khadi movement’ that heralded self reliance during the early twentieth century of India’s independence from the colonials. Long dormant skills in the traditional arts of spinning, weaving and embroidery saw an awakening.