Indian Antiquary Vol 59

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 177

August, 1930)
THE CULTURE OF MEDIEVAL INDIA
161
Mention must here be made of certain foreigners" that appear repeatedly. They are usually bearded and wear pointed “Scythian " caps, as indeed do the "foreign "worshippers in the later sites at Taxila. This head-gear can hardly be said to be foreign to India, being common throughout the Himalaya region; it also has close parallels in the head-dresses of certain fakirs and in the children's caps and hoods of Kacch and Gujarat. However, both at Ajanta and Taxila, the difference of the personalities seems to be stressed deliberately. They wear long-sleeved, tight tunios and in the Cave I fresco, that was for so long called the Persian Embassy, one figure is plainly wearing tight trousers and boots. Boots are also worn by a person who seems to be the court minister in the Hansa Jataka in Cave XVII. They are of course orthodox in images of Sûrya and also appear in the Mat sculpture of Kanishka.
In the Játakas mention is often made of " Benares cloth," and one also reads of bright yellow robes of "Gandhara make." Cotton is, of course, the special textile material of India, but it is certain that silk was in use at least in the medieval period. There are, however, indications that it was not in common use. Supplies of raw silk in modern India have been derived from Bengal and from China by sea via Bombay or Surat, but mainly from Yarkand and Bokhara via Kabul. This trade was in the hands of Lohani merchants, and Vigne says that Multân alone took 700 maunds. Furthermore, in the oldest examples of the Panjab phulkari embroideries in yellow, white and green on a coarse madder brown cotton material, silk is used only for the yellow, the white and green being cotton. In Hissar phulkárís are also worked in wool. Furthermore, all“ primitive "Indian embroidery is done with cotton or vegetable fibre of some kind or other. That of the Todas, with its narrow bands of geometrical motifs and looped towel-like finish, is more or less unique, but some of the motifs are comparable with the work of certain criminal tribes of south Bombay presidency. Their work, again, is directly comparable with the commonest motives of Indian cotton textiles, especially of the choli cloths of the Deccan and Southern India. So close is the likeness that one would be inclined to suspect a substitution of embroidery for loom work, were it not that the result is again closely paralleled by both Assamese and Singhalese work. As with the bulk of Indian woven cotton fabrics, checks and stripes form the main decoration together with chevron ("fishbone") and lozenged ("eyed ”) bands, enlivened with processions of sacred geese and occasionally lions. Both geese and lion bands are found at Ajanta.
Indian embroidery, apart from the minor types mentioned above, which are closely linked by their motives with loom work, has been quick to accept innovations. There are four main modern types. Firstly, there is the geometrical diaper phulkári done by Jât women from Hazara to Rohtak and Delhi.8 The only stitch used in it is the darn-stitch, and there are three kinds of design, viz. (1) chobe or border work with a plain centre, (2) bagh or garden,' in which the diapering is so close that the repeat is merely outlined by the red brown of the cloth, and (3) the true phulkari, which is an open diaper. The silk used is a golden yellow, loose floss silk, In later examples white silk appears, and tourist- and cantonment-pieces sport magenta, red and purple. Decadence introduces floral patterns and figures of elephants, women, etc.
The second centre of embroidery is Gujarat. Among the upper classes, the silk used is well twisted and the stitch a chain stitch, both of which facts would suggest foreign in. fluence, probably Chinese ; buttonholing does not appear in the best and oldest examples. Here the basic patterns are quatrefoils and cinquefoils, geometrically treated in lozenges, bands and scrolls. Both phulkari and Gujarat work make great use of inset fragments of looking-glass (shishadar). The practice cannot, however, be of very long standing. Figures of women, elephants and birds, especially peacocks, are prominent in Gujarât work. 6 Plate 5, 1. S. 51, 1885.
6 Plato 64, I. S. 93, 1887. 1 It is significant that many silk-wolvers in Bengal and Madras claim Gujarat as their place of origin. 8 Mrs. A. F. Stoel, Jour. Ind. Art, vol. II. 9 Watts, Ind. Art at Delhi, p. 383; Jour. Ind. Art, p. 15.