WHAT IS THE SARI?

The sari is a length of cloth measuring from about 4 to 8 meters by

120 centimeters. Which is draped around the entire body? Most of
this fabric is pleated at the waist and then wound around to make a
skirt or pair of trousers, with remaining few yards swept across
half of the body, covering at least one shoulder and sometimes
beiling the head.

Sari is either woven by hand - there are over three million

handlooms in india employing more then six million poeple- or by
power looms in textile mills. The creation of both types of sari is a
big business: sari production accounts for an estimated 2.5 percent
of all textile production in India, and most Indian women
excepting the poorest , buy both kinds. Hand-woven saris( or
handlooms ' saris. As they are know) highly praised, and most
womens can still recougnise the finerd etails of the good handloom
weaving, although for everyday wear the usually less exund
pensive mill-made saris are now commonly worn.

A women's ethnicity and class or caste background usually

influence her choice and pattern, and all of these will in turn be
effected by social norms and found in which she lives. These
differences are still noticiable today, though they are not as distinct
as century or even thirty years ago. For example, in north Indian a
widow is expexted to wear white, the colour of mourning, since
bright color are regarded as the preogative of young merried
women, with bright red being seen as the color of joy, energy and
martial bliss ( which is why it is worn by brides) older married
women, are expected to wear dark blues and other "dull" tones.
 A SARI'S DIMENSIONS

The actual lenght and width of sari varies by region and by quality
a
good sari made of expensive fabric, like a dense silk or fine cotton
muslin, will often be both border and longer than one that is less
costly; the less expensive mill-made sari worn by peasent and the
urban poor are noticably short in lenght and width. Many
traditional heavy cotton saris worn by tribal, peasent and low-caste
working women have always been short in order to facilate
movement, but among middle-class and weltheir women saris
expected to sweep the floor because exposed ankles are of
belonging to the laboring poor.

Traditional sari demensions are also influenced by regional and

community draping style. In the dravidian south, for instance,
many poorer low-caste and traible women, as well as some
conservative orthodox brahmins, still wear saris 7 to 9 meters(23 to
30) long that are draped in various trouser-like forms traditional to
their communities. Such draping style and saris, are realy worn by
today's urban middle class as they have adopted the ubiquities nivi
style, which during the last century was only worn in the western
deccan and some areas of Dravidian India.

SARI DESIGN STUCTURE

Although the sari is an untailored lenght of cloth, the fabric is

highly structured and its design vocablory very sophisticated. It is
divided into three areas; the longitudinal broders the end pieces;
and the field. Traditionally, each ares communicated a women's
social and family status, as well as her region identity, for certain
colors and motif were region and community specific. Its size and
elabrotion also indicated a family's wealth because added
ornamentation takes more weaving time, and so adds to the sari's
cost.
 Border usually extend the full(longitudinal)length of
sari either(1) as a woven design created by contrasting
supplementary-warp or weft weaving (2) through the wrap threads
bieng a different color to wrap making the feild or (3) by pronting
and embroidery. Most region, and even towns and villages had
their own traditional distinctive borders, and in some areas, such as
Bengal, different weavers in the same town specialised in specific
design. Although today the width of border tends to follow fashoin
rather the traditional rogation, the regional origams many border
design can still be recognized.

The end peice is the part of the sari that is draped over the sholder
and left to hang over over the back to front. The degree of
embellishmentt tradionally depends on how this is draped, as well
as for what occasion it is used, because expensive saris tend to
have
larger and elaborate end peice then less costly, everyday ones.

THE BASIC DRAPING STYLE OF SARI'S

THE NIVI STYLE-: The nivi style of drping the sari is now so
common among the urban middle-class Indian Women that meny
foreigners do not realize that there are other ways of wearing it-
whereas ther are literally dozens. Different regional, ethnic and
tribal communites all have their own sari style and draping style
and these can be divide into six major types. Today most sari was
tied in places with a string(sometimes to a petticoat), but in the
past, the upper broder of the first 90 cm(3feet) of the sari was
usually knotted firmly round the waist, and the pleats and folds of
colth that formed the skirt (or trousers) would have been tucked
into that.

THE NORTHERN STYLE:- The northern styles have skirt

pleats in the front and draped around the back and over the front,
so that the end piece covers the wearer breast. there are many
variations on this style, with the gujrati, bihar and orison version
being the most well known. the bangali drape shows elements of
bothy the north and dravidian style, not suprisingly, traditionalsaris
from the northern areas have large decorated end peices because
they are so visiable . the age of the northern draping style is
revealed by the fact that evan today in north Indain state of bihar
they are called Sidha(correct, straight , good) draping style, while
the nivi style is called an ultra(reverse, opposite, bad) style, even
by women who never worn a sari in the sidha manner.

THE DECCAN STYLE:- the deccan style include the nivi

version, which has various names in the diferent region of the
south west deccan where it is orinated. it uses 4.5 to 5.5 meters (15
to 18 feet) of cloth draped to create skirt with pleats in the front,
while the rest is drawn from the right hip across breasts and left
shoulder to hang down to back. another, once more widely
didtributed type of draping style.
That is also traditional to the Deccan
and the parts of south indian is the kachahha, which creata the
practical effect of a pair of trouser. there are many ways of tying
and draping kachahha saris, each giving a different result from
tight to loos around the legs and each uses a different part of cloth
to being the ioften complicated draping sequences. these style are
associated with Maharashtra, but the are found throught the deccan
plateau(maharashtra andhra pradesh and madhya pradesh) and the
south (karnataka and tamil nadu).
TYPES OF SARI'S
 BLOCK PRINTING SARIS'S

No one knows when or where block printing orignated, but the late
fifth-century murals at ajanta showing textiles containing small
repet motify suggest that such work was already being carried out.
it was certainly in existence by the eleventh century because
printing Indian textile fragaments have been excavted from the
rubbish dumps of the maldivial Egyptian port of al-fustat.
block printing saris have been created throughout India over
the past few centuries but the western region has remained the
primary area of production. ntil the early 1960s in remote and
conservative areas in rajasthan and madhya pradesh various rural
and ethnic groups still wore saris printed in specfic color and
design typical of their communities but now this tradition all most
compleately lost as most women wear lower priced mill printed
textilesand only samples found in anthropological museum
collection indicate the old divercity. unlike other traditional textile
block printed saris have been almost compleately wiped out by the
mill print sar industry and the few traditional saris and odhanis that
are still being made are usually created to "standard dimention(5.5
meter or 18 foot,saris and 2 meter or 6foot duppatas ) so that they
will sell throughout India.
today saris makeup only a small percentage of Indias block
printed textile industry and most of the major block print centers
created many other kind of fabrics including yardage for tailored
apperal and home furnishing.The two largest concentrations of
block printing activity center around
sanganer/bagru/jaipur(rajasthan ) and
farukbad/fathepur/allahabad(utttar oradesh) with smaller industries
in barmar,pali and kota(rajsthan) and Ahemdabad(gujrat) as well
as New delhi, haryana , shrinagar and jammu(Jammu and
kashmir).

rular and tribal groups such as bhamiyo agriculture community and

tribal bhils and bhilalas, traditionally wore indigo-dyed dark blue
and black saris and odhinis, while hire cast group favoured red ar
offwhight with red and black printed designs. High cast hindus
eschewed blue because indigo-dyeing involved frermentation,
which they regarded as ritually impure, but those who wore saw
blue as protection against the evil eyes.

BANDHANIS SARI'S

the technique of tie-die cloth so that many small resist-dyed"spots"

produce elaborate patterns over the fabrics is called bandhani in
gujrat, a name which also refers to the tie dyed fabric itself
.bhandani is believed to have existed in India science at least the
late 5th century AD because such work is envident in the fabrics
depicited in ajanta murals, but many of today's western Indian
bandhej belong to the khatri =, chipsa (printing), panjabi chavda,
rangrez(dayer ) or neelgar (indigo dayer) communities In fact ,
about nine socialy groups are involved with the production of
traditional bandhani textiles , which is perhapes why they are still
made for local communities in many areas ,and why thiis particular
ethnic craft has not been as badly deciented as the traditional block
printing industry.
Bandhani saris and odhanis were worn by women of all
religious, casts and tribes, and were and cotton, mullberry silk ,
and even wool in the case of some ethnic odhni. the traditional
bandhanis market has shrunk,however,becouse ofthe rise of low-
cost silk-screened imitations, and most mordern bandhani saris are
larger design and fewer ties then in the past.Bandhani saris's are
traditionally worn by weilther,often urban.women for special
occasion, including weddding.

the most important manufacturing centers are:

Jamnagar, which has a reputation for producing cloths of a very
bright red resulting from the quality of local water; bhuj(kuch)
where some of the finest knots are created;
Ahemdabad (cenetral gujrat), one of India's major industrial textile
centers where many rural craftpeople migrate for work; and
jhunjhunu,sikar bikaner, jodhpur(Rajasthan).

PATOLA SARI's

The most time consuming and elaborate sari created in the western
region is patola(prural;patola), which has intricate five color
designs resist-dyed into both warpand weft threads before
weaving, resulting in a compleately reversiable fablic. although
they are now created in onlyt two famalies in patan(gujrat),patola
are believed to have been made since at least the thirteenth century
and have always had aristocratic ritulistic associations. the walls of
some south indian temples, such as mattancheri(Kerala) and or
padma (lotus flower).red and black is the most common color
combination, as in the finely made khatriya odhnis,, but other pairs
of color are found .For instance, the panetar sari is a gujrati.
the bright red yellow pomcha piliya is a
traditionally odhani worn by Rajasthani and Haryana groups such
as the jat, and the red and yellow medallion saris have also existed
science atleast the ninteenth century. saris and odhanis with a
single ground color and multicoloured die spots are common
among certain ethic gropus. single color saris and odhanis with
white spots are common. The most famous is a gujrati sari called
gharchola. it is usually red but occasionally green,divided into a
netwok of squares created by rows of white tie-dyed spot or woven
bands of zari. In rajasthan , a type of bandhani created by tying
entire length of cloth rather than tiny section produces diagonal
strips of bright color called lahariya(waves). these saris were
traditionally given as gift during the festival of holi and teej.

EMBROIDERED SARI

The ewstern region also has a rich embroiery (Bharat) tradition

much of which is created by ethnic groups like rabari and sodha
rajputts who do not wear sari and whose work has not yet been
transfered to modern 'designer sari . sari with metallic thread
embroidery are commoly found in the west ,although most of this
type of work is created throuhout northen India originally
associated with wealthy (often aristocratic) Muslim communities,
metallic embroidered saris are frequently worn by Rajputs ,
Lohana (sindhi traders), MARWARIS (Rajasthani traders),and
other wealthier often urban, woman for wedding and special
occasions. Some scholars believe that when the Mughal court
collapsed in the late eighteen century, court embroiders emigrated
to the Rajput kingdom where their work continued and spread.
Howere the fact that in the thirteenth century Marco polo oraised
Gujratgold and silver embroidery ,albeit on the leather , suggests
that this tradition may have already been welll established prior to
MUghal times .
Three year of metallic thread embroidery are found two of which
use gold wrapped threads called either kalbattum (now considered
an old fashined term) or zari.One style (muka) requires thick zari
to be coilled on the surface and couched with silk,and usually
worked on heavier silks and satins.Another style ,called kadani and
sometimes kalahattun,has metallic threads embroidery direrctly
into the fabric with both the sari and ground clothbeing finer and
lighter than in muka work both chiffon and georgete are
popular.both types of embroidery are also called zardozi or
zardoshi.The third of metallic embroidery is easir to distinguish
because its uses flattened gold or silver wire (badla)that is pulled
through the fabric, creating small raised metallic dots or knots
distributted over the cloth to form floral and foliate patterns.

THE ILAKA
SARIS

Asari with designs combining elements of the deccan sari and the
Tamil kornad is common in northern karnatak
(Dharwar,Bijapur,andBelgaum districts)and southern Maharasthra
(Sholapur).known by a variety of names.,it is generally called an
ilakal sari today, after a village in dharwar district. It is worn
throughout much of southern and western as well as northern
Karnataka.Its field is usually dark (blue,purple,and green) and
plain,although the Maharashtra version may contain a fine
check.Both borders and end piece are bright red with
supplementary warp bands ( kambi) in white, commonly in
herringbone,saw tooth and phool design.The end piece contains
two large white supplementry weft reku, here called teni, woven in
the interlocked weft technique.
Many ilkal saris are also embroidery with a form of runing stitch
work called kasuti (embroidery) the stiches created straight and
zigzag lines as wellas angillar often snowflake like floral
geomatric and represtationnal forms, including elephants and
stitch,gavanti for a double running stitch creating an unbroken line
and murgi for a zigzag line. There are sevral types of sdari similar
to the ilkal in other part of the westertn deccan that were traditional
associated with highewr caste and wealthier woman and in
maharashtra many of these sari were called lugade to differentiate
them from ordinary sari.One sari of this type is now becoming
increasing ly popular among lower caste maharashtra .it has asilk
( now often systhetic)warp with a cotton weft and a cheaked or
doop chhaon field.in southern maharashtra today,the end piece
warps are tie dyed red and the white tenti of the ilkal sari are
woven in,but elsewhere the ends piece matchess the colors of the
fields (such as adarker shade of olivegreen with olive green
field)unlike the ilkal sari, the borders are almost always the same
color as the field,being distinguished by a wide band of
supplementary warp[ threads usually woven in a mat weave design
in addition to stripes of herrinbone and small saw tooth patterns.

GUJRATI BRICADE

Although there hav been recent attempts to revive the gujrati

figured silk (brocade) industry which once thrived in surat and
Ahmdabad, today it is virtually extinct. it fell victim to early
twenttieth century upper class fashion changing from the mughal
kin cabs (figured cloths with more zari threads than silk) to plainer
fabric as well as to the removal of much of the traditional Muslim
client base that used these textiles, as they moved to Pakistan prior
to indepedence in 1947.ALTHOUGH SURAT CONTINUED
PRODUCING FIGURED zari yardage into the min 1950s the
qualiaty and variety had noticeably declined.These silks were still
fine enough in 1903 to win all the prize for brocade fabrics during
the exhibition recorded by watt ,yet even then the quality was
declining watt states that the older eighteenth and nineteenth
century kin cabs were ''infinitely suerior or the modern glaring
color and wallapaper design ''of early twentieth century sample.

these old brocades had such distinguishing

characteristiecs as(1) BUTI WOVEN INTO field in the warp
dorection instead of the weft, resulting in their lying horizontally
instead of vertically on the sari when draped and (2) floral desing
woven in colored silks against a golden (zari woven ) ground
fabric.Although such ''inlay,, work is common feature many
western deccan figured silks the gujrati work usually had leaves
flowers and steams outline by a fine dark line.

BENGALI SILKS SARI

Silk saris are woven in regions of weft bengali away from the
delta in the northern (Murshidabad ) and south western districts
(burdawan,bogra,bankura and midnapur) .sari with white undyed
field and colored borders are common being know as gorad or puja
saris the letter because of the ritual associations. the wedding robes
described in many medieval sanskriti documents reflect this
aesthetic and until recently red borderd white silk sari were often
worn by high cast bengali women during marrige such saris were
also traditional worn on important ceremonial and religius
occasions such as the goddes Durgapuja held during the tumnal
Navaratri (nine night) festival, which culminates in a city state of
the goddes Durga being immersed in the Ganga on the teth day.In
some Bengali towns the statue is draped in this sari and the past
local raja would be ritually draped in it during a pivotal part of the
festival.

Always of the silk gorad saris may be created from either

mulberry or tassar the term gorad meaning white refer to rather
than just white silk sometime the triangular kumba are aded
especially to those with intrlocked weft borders while the end piece
is typically small , consisting of the usual cluster of yarn dyed weft
threads forminng strips .The quality of the fibers and weaving is
usually what distinguishes different gorad saris from each other.

JAMDANI SARIS

The most expesive and exclusive dacca muslins were those that
had a distinctive supplementry weft work woven into the fabric.It
is unclear when these muslins (called jamdani) first appeared ,
because although the name jamdani is believed to be of persian
origin many hindi and other north indian language textile terms
(such as resham for silk and zari for gold warped thread) had
become personalized after the islamic invasions, and this may be
no expiation.The jamdani weaving methods does not require the
use of the persian derived draw loom. Insted it employs two
weavers sitting side by side at a simple handloom who add every
discontinuouns supplemetry weft motif separately by hand, using
individual spools of threads called tlis.

Watt 's catalogue gives the prices of a few of these sari's and
tellingly ,the least expensive neelambari jamdani at Rs ,40,
regarded by him as cheap reveals that the coarser version were
expesive textiles. But just as the very five varieties are no longer
woven so have some of the coarser types disappeared.

jamdani are decorated with floral motif

woven in discontinouus supplemetry weft cotton or occasinally silk
or systhetic fabrics providing an opaque patterning against
transparent ground. often the supplemetary threads are thicker and
heavier than the ground .In the late nineteenth century ,mugal
motif were usual although they were often stylized and anreglar .
Bangladesh jamdani continue the tradition but in west Bengali
saris more geometric, abstract and zoomorphic form are more
common .

TASAR SILK SARI S

Most of Indian tasar silk comes from Bihar .Bihar produces about
66 % of India tasar silk and 33% off all India wild silk, although
much of it is woven in west Bengali and orgis . tasar silk is
produced in the hillls of the sourtern and eastern districts of
hazaribags, Ranchi ,singhbhaum, palaum,begusari,mugger,santhal
pargan and Bhagalpur ,with the greatest volumes in singhbhum and
santhal pargans.The east Bihar town of Bhagalpur is famous for
tasar silk mills,and although nobody knows when this industry
began, it was thriving when the first European merchants arrived in
the sixteenth century .Inabout 1800,francis Buchanan,at once time
a british government official, sureyed local textiles for east India
company and listed five types of tasar silk fabric woven there ;
They were all tasar cotton mixes usually with a tasar warp and
mixed tasar cotton weft and four types were exported out of states.

A silk fabric called sela and a cottan dhoti

with a taser border called a Manipuri dhoti werw being sold, the
latter apparently similsr to traditional cottan field and taser border
saris created further south in the eastren Deccan, Two type of silk
woven Today : plain raser and mixed taser cottan . Plain taser sari
made From reeled(not spun) threads are popular troughtout india.
local saris made from mixed Taser cottan fabric are still bieng
created ,although they usually reverse taser wrap cottan weft
structure recoded by Buchanan. Many of these morden sari also is
used ikat dyed cottan wrap borader imported from Orissa ( where
are manufactured in bulk) and have an unadorned field. Today the
cheapest taser saris cost mare than the lowest priced mulberry
silks, which makes them no longer the 'poor man's silk that they
once were

KHADI SARI'S

About 57% of all the people empolyed in the khadi industry live in
eastern India. with Utter pradesh alone accounting for 39% khadi
which is a popular abbreviation of khaddar, is the handspun,hand
woven cloth that became the enduring symbol of the Indian
Indepedence movement in the 1920s ( the Indian flag depicts the
charkha spinning wheel).It evolved out of the Swadeshi movement
of the late nineteenth century, which emphasized the use of
indigenuous rather than imported products,in particular cotton
cloth, as a means of regaining political and economic autonomy
from the British Gandhi pushed the idea further by including hand
spining something that had all but disappeared in India by the
mind-1820s,in order to give employment to poor women as well as
to make a political statement.

Most khadi sari's are

difficult to distinguish from other handloom sari's, especially today
as much of the cotton yarn is mechanically products rather than
hanspun. But khadi fabrics usually have a slightly '
roughappearance, partly because they are always woven by hand
on simple handlooms without any mechanical aids. The threads of
khadi silks,however,are still hand on simple handwoven, so the
fabrics have amore obviously textured appearance Because of the
amount of loyal following because of the textile's political and
intellecctual association , in addition to their aesthetic appeal.
 Again in terms of design little
differetiates khadi from other handloom sari as they are usually
decorated with local patterns .The exception are the silks which are
often block -or silkscreen with modern rather than traditional
motifs ( such as prints depicting bullock cars along the road the
patterns fuond in traditional appliqued wall hangings.

GADWAL SARI'S

Gadwalsari's strong links to the kornad sari's of south India and the
ilk border cotton field sari's os the eastern central Deccan .they
woven in the interlock -weft tecnique (called kupadam tippadamu
here) , often with kumbham (also called kotakomman ) in the field
was often of unbleached cotton although it may have also
contained colors such as canary yellow and ime green. gadwall
sari's also exited usually as reku..they are often regarded as puja
sari's by local women who were them for religious and festive
occasions.

Today gadwal makes many sari's for the mainsteream south

Indian markets .Most still are wovwe with interlocked -weft
borders of contrasting colorsa and have design of the kornad or
south Indian -Tamil brocade type discussed in chapetr six.It is
belived that the brocading abilities of many of the weavers in
gadwal originate from Banaras where a local maharaja sent their
ancertors to learn brocade weaving skills the desings however , do
not show any Banaras influenced but are strogly south east Indian
in structure and aesthetic quality.

RESIST DYED SARI'S

Today madurai is best known for its inexpensive, hard -wearing,

medium weight cotton saris that are printed and resist dyed. these
saris are popular throught southern india among both the rural and
uraban poor(8meter) and urban middle classes (5meter ), and are
becoming increasingly common in north as the range of design and
color is expanding to suit north indian tates. These are not luxuary
sris. they are made of tough opaque cloth that washes well, and
usually contains narrow supplimentary wrap bands of low to high
quality zari woven in the border with an adyar and peice. after
weaving sari is dyed ane a constracting color for border and end
piece,the latter being added through either slik screening or by
resist dip dyeing (placing the cloth between two long woven blocks
). Various methods are used to embellish the cloth further, such as
block printig and silk screen printing simple repetitive geometric
pattern in border or morew commonly the field either resist pastes
or a colored dye.Untile recently, most Madhuri resist print
mimicked the nineteenth century bandhani saris made from the
region's expatriate saurathtarn community. they are known by
varity if names , such as sungadhi, chungadhi and junnadi(all based
on the north indian chunari) after the evenly distributed spot
covering the feild. the nineeteenth century sungudhis (no longer
made) had simlpe geomatric pattern in different color(usually red
and black).
At the opposite end of the social scale are kalamkari resist
dyed saris that are exclusuvely made for the maratha ranis of
thanjavore until the end of nineteenth century, often known as
kodalikarupur or karupur saris, after the village of manufacture,
they consist of a fine cotton muslin in which discountinuous
supplementary zari patterns were woven in the jamdani technique.

BATICK AND KALAMKARI SARI'S

Northern Andhra pradesh is also known for its kalmkari saris, so
named for the pin-like instrument that is used to apply dye or wax
to create freehand dyed or resist-dyed patterns on the cloth. it terms
of saris, the most important centre for this workis machilipatnam,
located at one of the mnths of Krishna river , atlhough several
other centers creating similar saris have sprung up in nearby town
such as Balyalagudam(krishna district).
most of the work on machilipatnam saris is not hand-drawn,
however, as the black outlines and red-dyed patterning are usually
balck-printed on. as these saris are typacally red. red-
downandblack, there may be painted on colors, such as green or
yellow , oe else in creating the wax-resist. large areas of wax resist
may be applied to the cloth, espacially when nit is dyed in indigo,
as the fabric is dripped in to the indigo bath after the wax has
dened, called batik, and the fine penwork associated with
kalamkari is usually missing. the batiks usually have Mughal-style
or abstract Mordernist design.
A class of kalamkari sari called a multan was once created
here, with each type named after the clor of its ground. a white
multan had a white ground with red and black design, a red multan
a red ground with black and white pattern, while a balck multan
had red and white patterns. the patterning showed strong mughal
influences and tended to created from static-looking block-
printing motifis. ii is not knon wheater these saris were in any way
connected with the pakistani town of multan. anthor type of sari,
the sanghadi , had white and red dots upon a black ground, and it is
likely that is was a descendant of the saurashtran bandhani work
that used to be carried out in
Andhra Pradesh in nineeteenth century, much of manhilipatnam's
dyes-cloth industry proable has historical roots in the chintz
industry that was based here after the british set up their port and
then factories in 1611.

PARSI SARI'S

The paris saris origanally came from persia, being Zoroastrian who
fled from Muslim persecution and forced conversion during the
earlyeigth century. for the next thousand years they lived in gujrat,
adopting the local cloths and language but maintaning their
seperate religious and ethnic identity. It wasnt until the arrival of
the British and the groth of the Gujratis port and then bombay in
eightneeth century that are social states changed.BOat builders and
trades by profesion , they deceloped good relation with the British
who used their services, many paris famails amassed huge fortunes
in the nineteenth century.
Although they never lost thier etnic identity the paris began
to emulate British manners during colonail rule . through the
nineteeth c enturies paris women continued wearing saris draped
the Gujrati style but instead of the traditional bright reds and
yellows of gujrati textiles , they cahnged to sober balcks and
whites origanally , the paris wedding sari was of the usualred
gujrati type but this bacame a white sari made of ethier borderie
anglais or lace from onne of the christian convente=s in goa and
other areas. Aothough boderi anglais is usually cotton with
embroidered floral motifs and buutonhole stiching, giving a lace-
like effect, the parsi versaion were worn on special occasions, and
a red silk with white chines embrodred with silk from chaina were
also worn spcial occasaion, and a red silk with white chines
embrodery was often worn by bride during wedding festive,,
altohough not during the actual ceremony itself . when Indian
upper-class fashoin changed in the early twenthieth century,
wealthy paris ladies adopted embroidered chiffon saris in place the
of tradition heavier fabric.

POCHMAMPALLI IKAT SARI'S

POCHMAMPALLI in nalgonda district lies close by and is famous
for its ikat saris. It is not the only town where ikat saris are woven,
however, as many town in nalgonda, Hyderabad and Guntur
distircts, such as chirala, Golconda and jalna weavw=e them. Here
ikat weaving is called chit-ku and pangdu-bandhu, while the tie-
dyed yarn is katakbutis. Unlike the orrissan industary it appears to
be a mordern development without strong indigenous root most
evidence sugggest ikat weaving began in the late nineteenth
century, when most of the orginal textiles were ;arger
scarves(rumal) made for export to Arbia.Only poor local fisherman
ever wore these textiles were largerscarves (rumal) made for expert
to Arabia. Only poor local fishermen ever wore these cloths as
lungies although larger versions were also made as duppatts for the
areas Muslim women. Although nowa days weavers are primaraly
Darvidian(telgue -speaking) Hindus, namely padmasalis and
Devans , these textiles did not imping on traditional sari-wearing
habits of local women, and all other example of andhra ikats are of
the rumal type .THese are some intriguting exceptions to this
theory of recent origins however. for instance, an 8 -metre(26 foot)
sari called a janani, which had ikat bands in the endpiece, was once
woven here, while to the north inBastar.Unfortunately, little is
known about the history of either sari.

overall, ikat sari do and tapper to have been made in the

pochmpalli area the 1950s,
and the earliest we have seen, bought in 1955, show design closer
to thesiddipet khans rahter than the ikat rumals.
like thew khans the border of these early Pochampali ikats were
only emblised with supplimentry -wrap patterns not ikat while the
end peice consist of a seris of bands of different width decending
size from the large central band.
unlike the khans these bands were only emblisshed with weft ikat
dyed threads, that no supplimentry -weft weaving is present in the
end peice is suggestive of the janani sari documented by an
anthropologist in 1970s. which indicates a possiable link between
the much older supplimentary threads siddipet khans sasris woven
in this area and today's ikat industry.

TRIBAL SARI

An estimated thirty seven millon tribal people live in the eastern

Deccan comprising more than eight different tribes.Such large
trbal communities as the senthal (BIhar,west
Bangle ),Munda(BIHAR) ORAON ( Bihar,Madhya Pradesh) and
gond (Orissa,Madhya pradesh,Andhra Pradesh)as well as smaller
groups like the khonda Bondaand Gadaba of Orissa and Ho,
Bhumjiand paharia of bihar ,live here. as in the northan east,many
of these people are named after the group of languaage they speaks
rather than thier specific tribal communities ,and thier language
range from Dravidian (Gond,Oraon) and indo
-aryan(Chikbaraik).to Autro-Asiatic(SanthalMunda, HO).
Although tribal communities in some areas grow
cotton,albeit in small amuonts and of poor quality and even spin
and dye it, most refuse to weave textiles because they do not wish
to be associated with the lowcaste atatus that weavers in Hindu
society.In chota Nagpur only one semi -tribal group weave and
sells its products to other tribals the chikaraik of Ranchi distric,
who are also know by such names as swansi and even anti (which
reflectthier mixed tribal-hindu status).Most Hindu weaving groups
in the tribal areas are known as panr or pank (Literally, weaver)
.There are Hindu panka groups weaving Oraon saris in northern
Madhya pardesh,Daspanika weaving Gond sari;s in Bastar and
Mirgans weavers in koraput who belong do weave their own
clothes live in korput,which is still one of more inaccessible areas
of peninsular India.

WILD SILK SARI'S

India has more indigenuous species of wild silkworns than any
other nation in the world, and consequetly products the largest
range of wild silk fabrics -namely tasar(of which there are several
kinds) ,er(or endi) and muga silk -and the north -east products
mo9st varieties.In fact,Assam account for 67% of all the eri silk
and 93% of all the mugha silk produced in India,while Assam and
eastern India;s Bihar together account for almost 70% of india total
wild silk production.Wild silk is kamrup and Nugongg districts in
central and western Assam as well as in Lakhipu and Dibrugarh
districts east.
Strictly speaking wild silk in the products of silkworms living
naturally in India Forests most are now actively cultivated by
farmers,villagers and tribals. Wild silk; nowadays denotes any silk
that is not produced by Bombyx mori ,the chines silkworms which
feeds on mulberry trees (hence the name ,mulbery silk) from which
all varieties of commercial silkworms because its silk filament
(which its caterpillar produces to create the cocoon ) is the only
one that has a completely circular cros-section and that is to
deguam (that is,remove the binding,glue;which holds the filament
in place)the gum(called sericin ) is what gives most wild silk to
color for many silk filament are naturally pure white .Unlike
Bombxy mori ,however,the filament of all other silkworm species
are tend to stick together which coupled with sercin crystal
adhering to them makes fully automated mechanical reeling
impossible.
raw silk is often misnamed wild silk .In the silk industry refers to
reeled, undegummed filament of Bombxy mori,but traders also call
the fabric as noil;raw silk .Noil consist of the broken ends and
fluffy residue left after long the filament from Bombxy mori
cocoon have been reeled.