Q is for ...Quagmire ... n ... Quail, definitely

 

All this month I am writing about quintessential Indian handlooms, a quick but captivating dive into the saree specifically, a garment worn by Indians for five millennia. Come with me into the magnificent, complex and utterly fascinating world of fibre and yarn, of skills and techniques of dyeing and printing and embroidery, traditions unchanged for centuries. Of sumptuous finished fabrics that not only make a fashion statement, but also constitute our cultural heritage and political identity.

Q is for ...

...a fearsome quagmire that makes me quail. Every year...without fail. But I am super lucky that I can yell for help from my third home that once was, for a quick fix. 

So. Q is for Qutn...which you will immediately recognise for what it is, the Arabic word which gave the most widely used natural fibre its name - cotton. The very heart of Indian handlooms, exported for centuries from antiquity. 

The history of cotton use is deep and rich, though its exact origins are still shrouded in mystery. It is thought that cotton was discovered independently in different places. Cotton has been known for millennia - the earliest archeological evidence has been found in ancient civilisations in Asia, Africa and South America. 

Image credit. Earliest evidence of cotton cultivation in the ancient
world. Dates in years BP. 

In the Indian sub-continent, evidence of cotton textiles have been found at Mehrgarh, a Neolithic site predating the Indus Valley Civilisation. And we've already seen that something akin to Ajrakh pattern textiles were in use in Mohenjo-Daro four thousand years ago. Excavations there have revealed dye vats with woven fragments of madder-dyed cotton indicating knowledge of weaving of fabrics and dyeing techniques.  

The cultivation of cotton started in the Indus Valley Civilisation (of which Mohenjo-Daro is a part) by 3000 BCE. Cotton is mentioned in the Rig Veda, those hymns being written in Sanskrit in roughly 1500 BCE, the oldest religious/literary compositions known to us. The Sanskrit words for cotton 'karpas' and 'karpasum' travelled west into Latin as 'carbasus.' So it can be safely inferred that cotton was known and grown in India deep in antiquity, and the trade in it became so developed that it became as inextricably associated with India as silk was with China.  

Famous Greeks have mentioned Indian cotton - Herodotus wrote about Indian cloth as 'the wool exceeding in beauty and goodness than that of sheep' in 5th century BCE. Strabo too wrote about the vibrance of Indian textiles.  Arrian mentions the trade in Indian cottons in 130 BCE.

The Book of Esther (written 4th-2nd century BCE) has a reference to blue and white striped cotton hangings in the royal palaces of King Ahasuerus (widely believed to be Xerxes I by historians) -  further evidence of the cotton trade with the Persian Empire. Read more about that here.

Chinese travellers to India - Faxien in the 5th century, Xuanzang a couple centuries later, both mentioned Indian cotton and weaving hubs that they encountered in their travels.  European explorers who came east such as Marco Polo and Vasco da Gama also record the vividness and superiority of Indian fabrics. In sum, there is no shortage of sources who confirm the excellence of Indian handloom cottons from the earliest times to the 18th century. 

The spinning wheel or charkha came into use in India sometime between 13th/14th century and it is still used at present to produce handspun handwoven premium sarees. We have seen earlier how the charkha was used in India's freedom struggle and represented self rule/self reliance. The diffusion of the charkha through out the sub-continent increased yarn production and therefore boosted the textile output also.

During the Mughal period (1526-1857) cotton cultivation and the Indian textile industry boomed. The third Mughal Emperor, Akbar the Great (1566-1605), introduced a series of agrarian reforms and replaced the tribute system with a new tax regime called zabt, based on a uniform monetary currency. The state funded irrigation systems that increased crop yields and therefore the tax base. 

The system favoured cash crops and therefore cotton as well as indigo were given a fillip. By the time the Portuguese, followed by the Dutch, French, Danish and finally the British landed up, the Mughal Golden Age was at its height. When Jehangir, Akbar's son, granted the first permit to the East India Company to set up a permanent factory in Surat in 1613, India had an estimated 25% of the global GDP. The Bengal Subah (province) itself contributed around 12%, cotton textiles being a significant export. 

 

(Indian chintz)…crept into our houses, our closets, and bed-chambers; curtains, cushions, chairs, and, at last, beds themselves were nothing but calicos or Indian stuffs… almost everything that used to be made of wool or silk, relating either to the dress of women or furniture of our houses, was supplied by the Indian trade… ~ Daniel Defoe, in The Review, 1708.    Industrialisation paired with the discriminatory policies of the British Raj brought to an end the Indian supremacy in cotton textile exports in the 18th-19th century. Many skills were lost and several types of sarees disappeared such as the 'woven winds' Muslin and the Baluchari. The Treaty of Allahabad. Signed in 1765 between Mughal  Emperor  Shah Alam II and Lord Robert Clive of the East  India Company. This treaty granted EIC the right to act on  behalf of the Mughal state, & changed the Indian economy  in fundamental ways forever.  Exhibit in the Reserve Bank of India Museum. As discontent boiled over and the struggle for self determination intensified, the coarse handspun handloom cotton was weaponised as a tool for political resistance and as a symbol of self rule.  The Indian textile industry was built up again after independence was achieved in 1947. The Baluchari for instance was revived and woven on jacquard looms from the mid-20th century. And Bangladesh has revived the Dhaka Muslin in 2022. It has also clawed back the second largest share of global textile exports (8%)  after China (31%) in 2021 and has retained that position since.  India's performance is not as stellar but remains strong, it is among the top 10 textile exporters globally with a current share of around 4%. India is also the second largest producer of cotton and has around 17% of the world production.

Image credit Map of India giving the main weaving states
and the handlooms they produce.

~~~

Did you know that the current percentage share of cotton is 24% in all yarns? Now that's less than a quarter of all fibres used globally. Polyester surpassed cotton in 2002 to become the most widely used material. However, for nearly 7000 years cotton was the primary material used in garments. 

Thank you for reading. And happy A-Zing to you if you are participating in the challenge. 

A-Z Challenge 2025