Cotton India is the home of cotton. Cotton cultivation and its use in weaving are known since prehistoric times. The spinning and weaving techniques developed here produced fabrics, which came to be known for their extreme fineness and decorations. Cotton travelled from India to all over the world.
That it was a trade item is learnt from the material recovered from archeological digs in the ancient land of Babylon with Harappan seals. When the Romans and Greeks first saw cotton, they described it as wool that grew on trees. The legends associated with cotton weaving are many. Dacca (now in Bangladesh) produced the finest fabric—the mulmul khas or the royal muslin.
It was so fine that it was almost invisible and thus had poetic names; baft-hava (woven air), abe-rawan (flowing water), shabnam (evening dew). The Jamdani or the figured muslin traditionally woven in Bengal and parts of North India using cotton is one of the finest brocade products of Indian weaving. In regular weaving, the filling yarn passes over and under the warp yarn in a specific sequence. But when brocade designs in silk, cotton, or gold/silver yarns are to be woven, these yarns are transfixed in between regular weaving.
Depending upon the fibre content used for patterning there may be cotton brocades, silk brocades, or zari (metallic yarn) brocades. Besides the proficiency in making cotton fabrics, India’s crowning textile accomplishment was the creation of pattern in the cotton cloth with brilliant fast dyes. Until the 17th century, Indians alone had mastered the complicated chemistry of cotton dyeing, which was not mere application of pigments to the surface, but produced fast and lasting colours. Indian Chintz (printed and painted cotton cloth) had revolutionised European fashion and market.
Indian craftpersons were ‘ the master dyers to the world ’. Cotton is woven universally all over India. Super fine yarn is still spun and woven in many places, though the bulk production may be thick. The materials are made in a variety of designs and colours and find specific usages in different parts of the country.