BBS

Banaras is famous for its socio-economic and religious importance all over the world. The city is equally important as a brocade-weaving centre throughout the country. The weaving industry, which flourished during the Vedic period and touched its peak at the time of mogul period, explains how the act of weaving was a part and parcel of the life of the Banaras people. Whether it is the religious activity or earning of livelihood for the population, the weaving activity surpassed all other occupations. From the historical perspectives, the textile industry has found place from rig Vedic literature to post independent India.

Since the Rig Vedic times, we hear about several kinds of textiles among which figures out the cloth of gold1 (the Hiranya) as a distinguished type, the god in their resplendent grandeur wear it, as they drive in their stately chariots. The Hiranya cloth has been usually interpreted as the earliest equivalent for the present day zari work or the kimkhab (brocades). We also find specific reference to the embroidery in the Vedic literature.2    
Varanasi, a religious city and a center of wearing flourished as the capital of the Kasi Kingdom in the days when Buddha was yet alive. In Sutras9, it is mentioned that when Prince Siddharth become a bonze, he took off luxurious silk clothes of courtly taste of Kasi and wore instead earth-cikiyred robe namely kasayani vastrani. Clothes permitted to bonze in those days were made of cloths woven of waste silk fibres from wild silkworms, what was called ‘bark fibre’ cloths then, and those of hemp. There is also a story in Sutra of a person who becomes to embrace Buddhist faith by making offering to Buddha of cloths interwoven with gold threads.

In “Jataka”,10 the Kasi Kingdom is mentioned as a principal center of manufacturing cotton as well as those of silk in the 5th century or 6th century B. C. Cotton cloths of Kasi were exquisitely woven, smooth, bleached completely white, and their fibres were fine and soft. Tradition says that when Buddha died, his remains purified with balm were wrapped with brand new cotton cloths of Kasi. (Textile art of India, Kokyo Hatanaka Collection Page No.361). Richard Lanmoy in his book “Banaras seen from within” has mentioned that the Buddhist jatakas (3rd –2nd B.C) are a mine of information about life in ancient India. It has been mentioned that Banaras was a cotton growing region and famous for producing thread of a fine and soft texture. The city was equally reputed for its silk and wool. Read Moor………………………..