About the Book

Kashmir is known for its arts and crafts. But there is no single book so far which deals
overall and totally with both known and lesser-known crafts of Jammu & Kashmir State.
This book portrays a comprehensive study providing wealth of information and visual
documentation on the beautiful part of India comprising Jammu, Kashmir valley and
Ladakh. A state with rich craft and cultural heritage deserves to be better known in its
crafts context of people and culture.

As a close and living relationship ties land to people and people to craft and culture, the
book opens with brief description of this relationship.

Since traditional skills co-exist and change in the course of changing conditions, the book
covers some of the more important as well as lesser known crafts in their historical
background, present and potential for future.
Development being a constant process, the book also reviews the actual craft situation, its
scope, design, craft training, the domestic marketing and exports of crafts, concluding on
the most important factor- the craftsmen and their welfare.

The book is invaluable in many ways. Over 100 pages of excellent photographs and
typical design motifs capture vitality of Jammu & Kashmir crafts. General readers,
planners and administrators as well as traders and exporters will find highly useful the
details the book provides with the personal touch of author's rich experience over the
years.

About the Author

D.N. Saraf (born April, 1918) hails from Jammu and Kashmir. He did his M.A. in
Economics and took a special course in Marketing at the Harvard Business School,
U.S.A. He has been associated with such prestigious bodies as the India Crafts Council,
the American Marketing Association and the British Institute of Management.

Mr. Saraf started his professional career with the development of crafts in Jammu and
Kashmir and held several positions in the State - General Manager of the Government
Central Market for Handicrafts (1940) to the Director of Industries & Commerce (1954-
56).

From his home state, Mr. Saraf moved to the Central Government holding various
positions in the handicraft field from 1956 to 1976 - Director, Handicraft; General
Manager, Handicrafts and Handloom Export Corporation of India; Vice-Chairman,
Central Cottage Industries Emporium; Memer-Secretary, All India Handicraft Board and
lately Development Commissioner for Handicrafts, Government of India.

Mr. Saraf has been intimately associated with the development of handicrafts for the last
45 years. Widely travelled and the author of several reports and papers, he has been
involved with a number of projects in Jammu and Kashmir, India Government as well as
some other countries having worked on several U.N. assignments. Mr. Saraf's last book
"Indian Handicrafts - their potential and development 1982" has been highly acclaimed as
containing standard reference material.

Mr. Saraf is still actively associated with the state of Jammu and Kashmir, being on the
Board of Directors of the two state corporations dealing with handicrafts and handlooms.
There can be no better authority on the subject of arts and crafts of Jammu and Kashmir
with which this book deals profusely.

Preface

It is almost half a century ago that I first came in contact with the official aspect of
Kashmir crafts. I was at the time a student at Srinagar. It was a morning in 1934. I had
gone to the office of the state director of industries. After going through a gamut of office
personnel, I was met by the head-peon (jamadar) Tara Chand, himself the least of them,
was most imposing. He wore Khaki with a towering turban from one side of which hung
gold zari threads. I was told to wait.

I waited patiently for some hours. I wanted to discuss the question of handloom weaving
and hand printing in Samba, my hometown, where my father was engaged in the
manufacture and supply of handlooms to the department. (I vividly recall how as a child I
used to watch with interest the manufacture and transaction of local Samba crafts- its
centuries old tradition of hand printed cloth, its hand woven fabrics and embroidered
footwear. The craftsmen, many of whom I knew personally, worked in their homes and
sold their products in the local market.)

After kicking my heels on the bench for some hours in front of the khaki personage, I
remember thinking that were I director, I would perhaps attempt to listen to people
directly more attentively, particularly those actually engaged in craftwork. A director, it
seemed to me, existed to serve the maker of crafts and not the other way about.

As luck would have it, only six years later I found myself beginning to serve the crafts of
jammu and Kashmir myself- when my first venture was to attempt an organized outlet
through a state government central market for handicrafts at Srinagar. Through
subsequent years, from 1956 when I was director of the All India Handicrafts Board till
1976 when I retired as Development Commissioner, my contact with Jammu and
Kashmir crafts remained a close one. Later as adviser/consultant, handicrafts and
handlooms, jammu & Kashmir, as director on the Board of J & K Handicrafts (Sales &
Export) Corporation, and the J & K State Handloom Development Corporation, the bond
grew stronger. Even now, as a member of the state committee of handicrafts and
handlooms development, it seems to me that the overview that comes from planning and
organization cannot exist without knowing craft at its root level.

Craft as a saleable product is one thing. Craft in the local and regional lives of people
who make, use and inherit certain specific traditions is quite another. The two are of
course related. It is the nature of this relationship that began to interest me more and
more.

The crafts of the Kashmir valley are of course famous the world over. Still, many people
may be interested to know more about them in their own context, particularly some of the
lesser known crafts.

Also, very little is known outside Kashmir regarding the more recent developments:
There were barely 3000 carpet weavers 10 years ago. There are more than 40,000 now.

Certain crafts have entered a partial dispersal system appropriately enough, in the move
from cities and towns to rural areas.

Another significant feature is the large number of women who have been encouraged to
make crafts a way of earning and support. I recall with pleasure that as director of
industries in the mid 50s I set up the first centre for training girls in carpet weaving. The
more orthodox raised their eyebrows and were highly skeptical. But today, happily,
hundreds of women are engaged, for instance, in weaving carpets: a male prerogative.
Traditionally, again in Kashmir men have been the only commercial embroiderers. They
are still the majority. However, many women are slowly finding personal and
professional fulfillment in these crafts.

I should like to thank colleagues and friends in Jammu and Kashmir, more particularly
those connected with the Directorate of Handicrafts and the School of Designs. Their
generosity, wisdom, knowledge and suggestions have been of invaluable help to me in
preparing this book. I have also drawn upon the generous help of the office of the
Development Commissioner for Handicrafts, Government of India, and the Handicrafts
and Handloom Export Corporation of India (HHEC), besides are two state corporations
dealing with handicrafts and handlooms. Regarding travel, I have drawn freely upon the
literature published by the India Tourism Development Corporation and the State
Tourism Department. They have also helped me with photographs.

To the School of Designs, the S.P.S. Museum, Srinagar, the Dogra Art Gallery, Jammu,
Crafts Museum, Delhi, HHEC, the State Directorate goes the credit for a number of
photographs. Mr. M. Hussain, Chief photographer, State Handicrafts Directorate helped
me generously for which I am immensely grateful. My younger brother, Suraj Saraf, has
also supplied me with some rare photographs of the arts and crafts of Jammu region as
well as authentic information about them. I should also like to thank Mr. Madan Mahatta
for his professional assistance, the National Institute of Design and Mr. Rupinder Khullar
for supplying me selected slides.

I must thank Mr. S.P. Sahni for his valuable advice and help in starting on this book. Also
Mr. Mohiuddin Shah (present Director, J&K Tourism) for supplying information on
tourism and certain photographs, especially those on Ladakh by Mr. H. Satz.

I am particularly grateful to my dear friend, lola Basu for her advice and support with the
manuscript and the consistent good taste and direction with which she helped me select
the visuals.

Most of all, it is the craftsmen themselves who made this book possible. It has been my
great joy to know them personally and to work with them for over forty years.

Introduction

A word about the title of this book. Why 'art' and 'craft'?

Craft as we know it indicates a method of making or quite literally - manufacture: "the

direct control over the product and its production by the workman's hand or tool".

It is to be remembered, however, that originally in this country the word silpi contained
no distinction between terms that were to evolve later in the medieval period; such as the
distinction between 'fine art'-lalitkala - and 'craft' - hastyakala.
Once established, this hierarchy of value between "high" art and "low" or utilitarian
artisan-craftsmanship entered and became an engrained part of our social consciousness,
particularly in our attitudes to the maker.

But, what if we assume, as was originally assumed, that whatever is made well is in fact
creative? This makes more sense when we reflect that this is a country where
iconography, mastery of an inherited skill and social/design functions are traditional and
collective.

Particularly damaging from a design point of view is the very thinking that has frequently
led to our estimating an ornament at the expense of integrated solutions, such as
structural design and material utilization, as in the functional purpose of crafts in daily
life.

One obvious reason for this has been the historic rift in social usage that came from
increasingly feudal patronage. Another is the inevitable distortion of indigenous balances
that heavy 19th century Victorian demands generated in those crafts that the empire
found it commercially worth while importing: the "exotic",, "oriental fantasy", richly
worked surfaces at the expense of other values have taken their toll.

Meanwhile, the older guild system of craft production had already broken down into
imperial workshops working on commission for feudal and for export markets. The
craftsman was viewed as "Income generating" for a system larger than himself. And he
was worked hard.

The significance of local markets and the many festivals and fairs, where the craftsman
himself continues to buy his necessities, is a story that has taken us longer to realize. The
craft used in daily life have a certain simplicity, vitality and robustness. But even here it
is well to remember, there is quality and quantity…

In Vedic and Hindu India, all creative expression was believed to be derived from a
single inspiration. Now, not only did Kashmir lie directly in the passage of the Vedic
peoples into India, but its subsequent position in relationship both to peninsular India and
to Taksasila, the ancient centre of Hindu learning and Indo-Greek influences, cannot be
over-estimated. Much has been made of Kashmir's traditional geographical isolation. Yet
its closeness both to Hindu thinking and its strategic position in regard to trade and hence
to the cultural map of the world has perhaps been forgotten in the process.

Kashmir's traditional position on the ancient silk route that connected Persia and Persian
influence with china and Chinese influence strengthened its hold on Islam as much as
with the Far East. What is now the state of Jammu and Kashmir including Ladakh, still
holds together in a cluster as it were the socio-cultural and religious influences of
Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism and Islam. These influences are inevitably reflected in
craft and in the craft context.
Yet the point before fine art, decorative arts and craft began to view themselves
separately is itself accurately reflected in the Aitareya Brahmana (6:5:1). All creative
work (silpani), it is said, is as it were an imitation of the divine. Whether it be a clay
figure, a bronze cup, a garment, worked gold or mule chariot, all are works of art. He
who understands this, it goes on to say, understand that all creative work is intended for
self-culture (atma-sanskriti). By the act of making, the "sacrificer" integrates himself
through the rhythm that perpetuates itself through nature.

"Silpani" are perceived as "supporting" the heavens themselves.

The fact that creative activity of the widest kind was seen to express a "holy" experience
of life, that all disciplines converged to expand a single worldview, and that craft was
itself viewed as related to nature on one hand and to the integration of the maker's self on
the other, I consider particularly significant. It is for this reason that I speak of arts and
crafts lest the bond between these be forgotten.

The Indian artisan was originally both a structural designer and a craftsman. By the time
of the Mughals the function of designer and artist had clearly separated from that of
executor. This remains true of most of the Kashmiri crafts.

Nevertheless, the designer (naqqash) and the craftsman (karigar) collaborate closely. This
has led at its finest to the interaction of craft communities in the work of production. At
its less fine, carelessness can and has shown through.

While the specific direction of certain crafts has been governed by the taste and
distinction of certain courts besides great centers of religious culture, the crafts of the
people have survived. Yet, village crafts in Kashmir will remain robust only so long as
their actual use and social function is alive.

It craft is man's first technology, a craft at its finest represents the finest that can be
commanded with simple tools. Let us, then, not forget those essentially refined and
intricate techniques intended too for the discriminating, those to whom a rarity is
something worth waiting for. Many fine Kashmir crafts fall into this category.

Let us remember too the landscape, its generosity of seasonal colour, the still texture of
sky and water, the richer texture of autumn leaves, of saffron, of lotus and window and
pale spring flowers or mellow summer fruit. The poetry of these influences can be seen in
the finest kani shawls, in carpets, in embroidery, in the miniaturist techniques that
reached even papier mache. The craftsman's eye is open. Indeed, his perception of his
own natural environment is a perception that has left the lives of most of us today. It is to
this perception as much as to the actual work of his hands that we continue to respond.

CONTENTS
Preface 5
Introduction 8
Section Land-People-Culture 13
One:
Section
Crafts-Skills-Usages 51
Two:
TEXTILES 52
Handweaves, shawls, Embroidery, Handprinted textiles, Garment
making, Hoem furnishings, Kniting, Nara-Paranda making
FLOOR COVERINGS 89
Carpets, Numdahs Chain-stitched rugs, Gabbas, Othe floor coverings
WOOD-WORK 105
Pinjira (Lattice work) Khatamband, wood carving, Lathe-cum-lacquer
work, Chickri woodcraft
PAPIER MACHE 124
History of art, Processes, Painting, Designs, Development, Ladakh
masks
METAL-WORK 132
Statues, Weapons, Utensils, Enamelling, Jammu metal-work, Ladakh
metal-work, Turquoise-ware
SILVERWARE 150
Glorious past, Jammu, Ladhkh, Kashmir
JEWELLERY 152
Tradition and influences, Ornaments, Lapidary, Costume jewelery,
Dogra jewellery, Ladakh jewellery
BASKETRY AND MAT WEAVING 164
Bamboo work, Wicker-willow work, Kangri, Waggoo, Straw work,
Palm leaf work
LEATHER AND FURS 177
Tanning and curing, Fur products, Leather goods
CLAY AND CERAMICS 180
Historic finds, Unglazed earthenware, Glazed Dalgate pottery, Jammu
pottery, Ladakh clay products
PAINTINGS 185
Kashmir painting tradition, Dogra style, Basohli school, Wall
paintings, Folk paintings, Ladakh tankhas
STONE CRAFT 197
Sculpture, Architecture, Kashmir's current stone work, Jammu
tradition, Ladakh statues and stone carvings
Section
Organization and Development 204
Three:
State support, Production, Training, Design development and research,
Marketing, Craftsmen themselves
Annexures 250
I. Some Typical Design Motifs
II. Stall-holders, Government Central Market, Srinagar
III. Tourism: Present Position and Prospects
IV. Master Craftsmen-Recipients of Awards
Glossary 283
Select Bibliography 285
Picture Credits 288
Index 289