Indian Traditional Textiles

Maheshwari Sari and fabric

I, K.Ramachandran, A Textile Designer of Weavers Service Centres, involved in a small research to collect the so far authentic informations regarding the Maheshwari Sari and Fabric. I collected facts and informations from the few sources available to me and cross- verified them within these sources and presenting here the facts, which I felt near to authenticity. The city of Maheshwar, the ancient name of which was Mahishmati was founded by the King Mahishman of the Som dynasty. It was built as a capital and pilgrimage centre by the pious Rani Ahilyabai Holkar (31 May 1725 13 August 1795) (ruled 11 December176713 August 1795), of Indore whose own palace lay at one end of the temple complex. It is said that she settled a number of weavers here from Surat to weave saris for the royal household and to present to the Peshwa kings,visiting dignitaries, along with yellow turban cloths for the men in the army and the red ones for the mahajans, traders and nobility. She had grown up in Ahmed nagar, another important handloom centre and with her active support Maheshwar became well known for the SI 80s to 300s count cotton saris and turbans with zari in the border . Since she was not partial to floral motifs, the austere queen commanded the weavers to design only geometrical motifs. The weavers drew inspiration from the detailings of Maheshwar fort and the ornate stone carvings come up on the temple side of the complex. It became virtually an elaborate design directory for ,CW them .

The one trait of Maheshwari fabrics that has stood the test of time is its motifs. Even today they are mostly geometric and can be traced back to the detailings of the Maheshwari fort and temples. The most common border design patterns include chatai (woven mat pattern), CW linth (brick pattern), hira (diamond pattern) and chameli ki phool (the chemeli flower) . There were cirtain basic elements that combained with the central motif in the borders, such as SI the baila Ankhi, muthuda and the gom katari .

Baila ankhi

Chattai kinar

Pankha kinar

Luddoo kinar Leharia kinar Rui phool kinar The borders of Maheshwari saris are reversible and the pallus are distinctive commonly CW contain five stripes, three coloured ones alternating with two white ones .Based on the designs of the border the saris were named as bugdi kinar sari, zari patti sari, rui phool kinar sari, phool kinar sari, chattai kinar sari, kahar kinar sari, bajuband kinar sari, etcAI. The stripes and checks in the body are known by specific names like...the Mirani chowkda, a heavy warp stripe with a single light weft stripe, the Phutani chowkda, a 2 by 2 check, the Chand-tara, a check after every 8 or 10 thread ends, the Gunji patti, a 3 by 3 checks....and so onSI.

Gunji chowkda (1 x 1 check)

Phutani chowkda (2 x 2 check)

Gunji patti (3 x 3 check)

Chand tara (Broad check)

Meerani chowkda (uneven checks)

Gunji ratti (combination of small and big checks)

A range of natural dyes once used in Maheshwar included Sattalu rang, red of the Sattalu plant for the extraction of which there were Sattal factories. Brown was obtained from Harada and yellow from the Pallas flower. Aal or Madder was used till 1943 when it was replaced by fast chemical colours from Germany. This was in turn distrupted in 1945 by the second world war. Maheshwari saris suffered a loss of reputation as the weavers began to use non-fast colours which bled especially from the selvedge and endpiece on to the body.This led to an acute crisis in the Maheshwari market between 1951-53SI.

The master weave-traders of Maheshwar are of the generation that entered the trade when their fathers had already given up weaving in the early 50s and selling by the Pheri system in the cities of Maharashtra.They were largely dealing with pure cotton Maheshwaris till 1970 and since then switched entirely to silk in the warp. In their view, ever since they lost support among the royalty of Gwalior, Indore, Baroda and other princely states in neighbouring Maharashtra, the value of the SI Maheshwari seems to have fallen .

Once silk was introduced in the early 40s, the Garbhreshmi saris became famous, with a variation of silk checks on a cotton ground, both in the warp and weft.The problems of cotton sizing made it easier for most weavers to adopt a standard silk warp, cotton weft SI format in the 1950s referred to as the Neem-reshmi .

The weavers brought and settled in Maheshwar by Rani Ahilyabai Holkar were the Maarus, Salvis, Momins, Julahas, Khangars and Kolis. Of these the Maaru is the largest, originally said to have come from Surat.They consider themselves part of Khatri clan and are thus called Maaru Khatris. 30 to 40 years ago they used to weave and sell independently. They went as far as Amravati, Nagpur, Kolhapur, Pune and Baroda.The Salvis also came from Surat but in this case via Burhanpur. The Salvi women provided the service of brush sizing cotton yarn for the weaving community as a whole in Maheshwar. Many Salvi families left this town when work deminished and the quality of work in turn deteriorated and finally the sizing process itself was eliminated as it was no longer economically viable in comparison to silk weaving. Silk when it is streched out, does not require as much care as cotton when leasing the warp threads. Salvi women were once well known for their leasing of fine count cotton yarn SI on nimble finger-tips .

Originally pitlooms were used for Maheshwari weaving since historical times. These heavy, wooden looms are installed inside a pit, about 3 feet deep. The weaver has to sit on the wall of this pit, with his legs inside. The looms are permanently installed in these pits and have hardly moved from their place for many yearsAI. The main difference between Chanderi and Maheshwari saris is, Maheshwaris geometrical motifs. The other differences are though both have plain body, the Chanderi saris have buti weaving in the body and the Maheshwaris dont and the Maheshwari saris have checks and stripes in the body and the Chanderis dont. The Mahehwar weaver used many natural colours and the Chanderi weaver used only saffron. The Chanderi saris were still finer muslins comparing to Maheshwarisan. Once an all cotton weaving centre the Maheshwari like Chanderi had handled upto 300 counts cotton but today there is not a single loom for the pure cotton sari. The predicament of Maheshwar is similar to Chanderi, insofar as it has lured the highlyskilled fine cotton weaver in to weaving with silk for more wagesSI.

Sources
SI ----- Saris of India,Madhyapradhesh, Rita Kapur Chishti & Amba Sanyal, Wiley Eastern Ltd. & Amr Vastra Kosh CW ---- www.CopperWiki.org -------- CopperWiki is a community based collaboration to build worlds
largest repository of information about living consciously.

AI--------------www.aiacaonline.org ( All India Artisans and Craftworkers Welfare Association)

an-------------------authors note

Maheshwar fort