[world-vedic] Historic Aspects of Craft/Trade in India

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HISTORIC ASPECTS OF CRAFT AND TRADE IN INDIA

Although the courtly culture of the Mughal rulers of the Indian

subcontinent is the most well known, a cosmopolitan outlook was not new

to India; several sources point to a thriving system of international

trade that linked the ports of Southern India with those of Ancient

Rome. The chronicles of the Greek Periplus reveal that Indian exports

included a variety of spices, aromatics, quality textiles (muslins and

cottons), ivory, high quality iron and gems. Considered items of luxury

in those days, these were in high demand. While a good portion of

Indo-Roman trade was reciprocal, (Rome supplying exotic items such as

cut-gems, coral, wine, perfumes, papyrus, copper, tin and lead ingots),

the trade balance was considerably weighted in India's favor. The

balance of payments had to be met in precious metals, either gold or

silver coinage, or other valuables like red coral (i.e. the hard

currency of the ancient world). India was particularly renowned for its

ivory work and its fine muslins (known in Roman literature as 'woven

air'). However, these items must have been quite expensive since the

Roman writer Pliny (AD 23-79) complained of the cost of these and other

luxury commodities that were imported from India. "Not a year passed in

which India did not take fifty million sesterces away from Rome", wrote

Pliny. This trade surplus gave rise to prosperous urban centres that

were linked to an extensive network of internal trade. Literary records

from that period paint a picture of abundance and splendour . The

Silappathikaarum (The Ankle Bracelet), a Tamil romance (roughly dated

to the late second century AD), provides a glimpse of the maritime

wealth of the cosmopolitan cities of South India. Set in the prosperous

port city of Puhar (Kaveripattanam), the story refers to ship owners

described as having riches 'the envy of foreign kings'. Puhar is

portrayed as a city populated by enterpreneurial merchants and traders,

where trade was well regulated: "The city of Puhar possessed a spacious

forum for storing bales of merchandise, with markings showing the

quantity, weight, and name of the owner." The Silappathikaarum suggests

that the markets offered a great variety of precious commodities prized

in the ancient world. Special streets were earmarked for merchants that

traded in items such as coral, sandalwood, jewellery, faultless pearls,

pure gold, and precious gems. Skilled craftspeople brought their

finished goods such as fine silks, woven fabrics, and luxurious ivory

carvings. Archealogical finds of spectacular burial jewellery in

southern India appear to corroborate such accounts. Northern India also

had its flourishing urban centres. This can be inferred from

descriptions of an archealogical site in ancient Taxila. Vladimir Zwalf

(in Jewelry, 7000 years - Hugh Tait, Editor) notes: "The site has

yielded magnificent and well-preserved gold jewellery, notably

necklaces, ear-pendants and finger-rings, characterised by a mastery of

granulation and inlay." While most ornaments from that period have not

survived, sculpture from several sites shows heavy adornment.

Patliputra (now Patna) during the Mauryan period was described by

travellers as one of the grandest cities of that period.

 

TEXTILES

 

The antiquity of Indian textile exports can be established from the

records of the Greek geographer Strabo (63 BC - AD 20) and from the

first century Greek source Periplus, which mentions the Gujarati port

of Barygaza, (Broach) as exporting a variety of textiles.

Archaeological evidence from Mohenjo-Daro, establishes that the complex

technology of mordant dyeing had been known in the subcontinent from at

least the the second millennium B C. The use of printing blocks in

India may go as far back as 3000 B.C, and some historians are of the

view that India may have been the original home of textile printing.

"The export of printed fabrics to China can be dated to the fourth

century B C, where they were much used and and admired, and later,

imitated." - ( Stuart Robinson: 'A History of Printed Textiles'). The

thirteenth-century Chinese traveller Chau Ju-kua refers to Gujarat as a

source of cotton fabrics of every color and mentions that every year

these were shipped to the Arab countries for sale. " The discovery at

Broach of a hoard of gold and silver coins, mostly fourteenth-century

and belonging to the Mamluk kingdom of Egypt and Syria, suggests the

maintenance of the advantageous trading system recorded since Roman

times whereby Indian textiles and other renewable resources were traded

for precious metals". - (John Guy, 'Arts of India, 1550 - 1900') Also

in the thirteenth century, Marco Polo recorded the exports of Indian

textiles to China and South East Asia from the Masulipattinam (Andhra)

and Coromandel (Tamil) coasts in the "largest ships" then known. It is

conjectured that the initial development of this trade accompanied the

spread of Indian cultural influence in South-East Asia. John Guy in the

"Arts of India, 1550 - 1900", points out that "textile patterns on

sculptures of Indian deities in central Java and elsewhere in the

region very probably reflect the prestige cloths in circulation in the

late first millennium". Chou Ta-kuan, the Chinese observer of life at

the Khmer capital of Angkor at the end of the thirteenth century, wrote

that "preference was given to the Indian weaving for its skill and

delicacy." Robyn Maxwell (in Textiles of Southeast Asia) observes that

elaborately decorated Indian textiles were the most highly valued and

notes: " Many spectacular Indian trade cloths, most now two or three

centuries old, have been treasured as heirlooms throughout Southest

Asia into the twentieth century, making only rare appearances at

important ceremonies or at times of crisis". Prestige trade textiles

such as Patola (double ikat silk in natural dyes) from Patan and

Ahmedabad, and decorative cottons in brilliant color-fast dyes from

Gujarat and the Coromandel coast were sought after by the Malaysian

royalty and wealthy traders of the Phillipines. The port city of Surat

(in Gujarat) emerged as the major distribution point for patola

destined for South-East Asia, and was frequented by the ships of the

Dutch East India Company. "The right to wear patola was widely claimed

as a prerogative of the Indonesian nobility , a practice encouraged by

the Dutch East India Company who distributed patola to local rulers as

part of the incentives offered to win local trading concessions and

co-operation." (- John Guy, 'Arts of India') Textiles also comprised a

significant portion of the Portuguese trade with India. These included

embroidered bedspreads and wall hangings possibly produced at Satgaon,

the old mercantile capital of Bengal, (near modern Calcutta). Quilts of

embroidered wild silk (tassar, munga or eri) on a cotton or jute

ground, combining European and Indian motifs were comissioned by the

Portuguese who had been attracted to Bengal, (as traders had been since

the early centuries AD), by the quality of the region's textiles. J.H.

van Linschoten, who was based in Goa as secretary to the archbishop in

the 1580s, observed that Cambay also produced silk embroidered quilts.

Textiles from Golconda and further south also found favor in Europe and

South East Asia. In the early 1600s, Dutch and English trading

settlements were established in Golconda territory. Produced in the

Golconda hinterland, kalamkaris - i.e. finely painted cotton fabrics

were bought or commissioned from the port city of Masulipattinam.

Buying at source enabled the Dutch and English merchants to procure

these textiles at rates thirty per cent lower. 'Palampores' - painted

fabrics based on the "tree of life" motif that had become popular in

the Mughal and Deccan courts were also highly regarded. The

attractiveness of fast dyed, multi-colored Indian prints on cotton

(i.e. chintz) in Europe led to the formation of the London East India

Company in 1600, followed by Dutch and French counterparts. By the late

1600s, there was such overwhelming demand for Indian chintz (whether

from Chittagong in Bengal, or Patna or Surat, that ultimately French

and English wool and silk merchants prevailed on their governments to

ban the importation of these imported cottons from India. The French

ban came in 1686, while the English followed in 1701. (Not all textile

producing centres were associated with ports. Several textile producing

centres that catered to the internal market, and to the overland

international trade were located in Northern and Central India, in the

kingdoms of the Rajputs and the Mughals, each with their own unique

specialization. While Kashmir was well known for its woollen weaves and

embroidery, cities like Benaras, Ujjain, Indore and Paithan (near

Aurangabad) were known for their fine silks and brocades. Rajasthan

specialized in all manner of patterned prints and dyed cloths. Fine

collections of Indian Textiles can be seen in the Calico Museum in

Ahmedabad and in the Crafts Museum in Delhi)