The Rug Library

Gossypium arboreum, or tree cotton, is native to India and Sri Lanka and is still grown in India as 'desi' cotton.

A variety of cotton known as phuti karpas was used to make the famously fine Dhaka muslin of Bengal.

India has the world's largest area under cotton cultivation, roughly a third or more of the global total according to the Ministry of Textiles, though its yields per hectare are comparatively low.

In knotted-pile rugs, cotton's strength and smooth yarn make it a good warp; Britannica notes that in the East it is used for the whole foundation or for the warp alone.

Village and tribal rugs often use wool for the warp and weft as well as the pile, whereas city-workshop rugs more commonly have a cotton foundation.

Antique rug foundations were more often wool, whereas cotton warps and wefts became the most common foundation in 20th-century production.

Cotton seeds found among charred wheat and barley grains at Mehrgarh suggest cotton was grown there as a crop around 7,000 years ago.

India is the world's second-largest cotton producer and its largest consumer; the Ministry of Textiles estimated 2023–24 production at about 323 lakh bales, roughly a quarter of world output.

Old World cottons such as tree cotton were widely used before the 1900s but now make up only a small share (under about 2%) of global cotton production.

India introduced its first brand and logo for Indian cotton on the second World Cotton Day, according to the Press Information Bureau.

The Jaipur Rugs Foundation, registered in 2004 under the Rajasthan Public Trust Act, trains rural people to become home-based carpet artisans and connects them to markets.

Mirzapur weaver families interviewed by PARI include members of the Bind community, many of whom learned knotting from their fathers as children.

PARI reports that over the past couple of decades many Mirzapur weavers have moved from hand-knotting to hand-tufting, because knotting is harder and pays less, and that daily earnings of about Rs 200–350 have led some to leave weaving.

Long hours at the carpet loom can affect weavers' health; one Mirzapur weaver with 35 years' experience told PARI the work had harmed his eyesight.

A Google Arts & Culture short film on Mirzapur weaving features Abdul Kalam and his weaving community, who adapt designs to requests from buyers in India and abroad.

After Partition in 1947, weavers from Jhang, Multan and Sindh in present-day Pakistan resettled in and around Panipat and expanded its handloom industry, particularly woollen blankets and shawls.

Weaving families in Agra’s Tajganj area are said to descend from Mughal-era weavers, with the craft passed down through generations.

About 80% of the artisans in the Jaipur Rugs network are reported to be women, many working from looms in their own villages.

In Sanganer’s block-printing tradition, the Chhipa community carries out printing and dyeing, while the Kharadi community traditionally carves the wooden blocks.

Some later millefleur carpets kept a hallmark of 17th-century Mughal court pashmina rugs: silk warps in different colours arranged in stripes.

In the early 17th century, Mughal design moved from idealised Persian flowers towards naturalistic ones, possibly influenced by European botanical books and prints brought to the Mughal court.

Some early Mughal pictorial carpets were designed like a repeating textile, with each unit of trees, birds and animals turned in the opposite direction from the one before.

Distinctly Indian Mughal carpet designs included landscape carpets, animal carpets with lively chases, architectural lattices with flowers, and prayer rugs centred on one flowering plant.

Under the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal dynasties, carpet weaving grew from a craft of inherited patterns into a state industry using designs created in court workshops.