Tradition · weaving tradition · India
Kanchipuram silk
The 400-year-old Kanchipuram silk-weaving tradition at Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu — the mulberry silk sari with a separately-woven border joined to the body through an interlocking kondi (joint) technique, so the border's zari (gold thread) design can use heavier threads than the body. The three-shuttle weaving (one shuttle each for body, border and pallu) is the structural technique that distinguishes Kanchipuram silk from other South Indian silks. The tradition traces to the Chola period but took its modern form under Krishnadevaraya's Vijayanagara court patronage (1509-1529), when 2,000 Devanga weaver families were settled at Kanchipuram. The sari weighs 400-800 grams, uses zari with 55-60% gold content, and the warp has 36,000-72,000 threads. Received GI tag in 2005. The Kanchipuram sari is traditionally the bridal wear of South Indian Brahmin and Nayaka weddings.
- Function
- Trade & production
- Confidence
- Not assessed
- Location
- 12.834, 79.704
Connections (3)
- Craft tradition ofBanaras brocade
Banaras and Kanchipuram are the two great silk-weaving cities of India and they solve the same problem differently. Banaras brocades the gold into the weave with the kadhua technique so no float runs behind; Kanchipuram weaves the body and the border separately in different colours and interlocks them by hand. One is a Muslim weaving community working for Hindu weddings, the other Devanga and Saligar families settled since Vijayanagara.
- Craft tradition ofKānchī / Kānchīpuram / Kanchipuram
The Devanga and Saligar weaving families who make Kanchipuram silk settled there from the Vijayanagara period and brought Telugu and Kannada into a Tamil city, where their descendants still speak them at home. Craft migration is one of the main ways languages actually move across India: a guild relocates because a court or a temple will pay, and takes its speech with it into a region that does not share it.
- AnalogueSualkuchi silk, Kamrup
Sualkuchi on the Brahmaputra and Kanchipuram on the Palar are the two great silk-weaving towns at opposite ends of India, and they work different animals: Kanchipuram weaves mulberry silk in heavy zari borders for temple and wedding use, Sualkuchi weaves muga, the golden silk of a wild Assamese moth reared on som and sualu leaves and found nowhere else on earth. Both are single-industry towns where most households own a loom.
On these journeys
Sources
GI registry; Kanchipuram weaving records
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