Tradition · glazed tile & pottery tradition · Pakistan
Kāshī kāri
Also known as Kāshī kāri — the tilework of Sindh & Multan
The blue-and-turquoise glazed tilework that faces the shrines of Multan, Uch Sharīf and Thatta, and the pottery still thrown at Hala and Nasarpur in Sindh. The name comes from Kāshān in Iran, which is where the technique came from, arriving with Central Asian craftsmen and then staying long enough to become local — the Sindhi and Multani palettes, heavier on cobalt and turquoise against white, are not Persian ones. It is the surface almost every Sufi shrine in the lower Indus presents.
- Function
- Trade & production
- Confidence
- Not assessed
- Location
- 30.198, 71.470
Worth knowing
Jaipur blue pottery descends from the same Persian root by an entirely different route, through Mughal Delhi and an Afghan potter's migration, so two living traditions a thousand kilometres apart are cousins that have not met.
Connections (3)
- AnalogueJaipur Blue Pottery
Two living blue-glaze traditions a thousand kilometres apart, descended from the same Persian root by different routes, and they have never met. Kāshī kāri reached Multan and Sindh directly with Central Asian craftsmen and stayed on the shrines, heavy on cobalt and turquoise against white. Jaipur blue pottery came through Mughal Delhi and, by the usual account, an Afghan potter's migration into Rajasthan, and became a studio craft of vessels rather than an architectural surface. Same chemistry, same palette, two entirely separate professions.
- Craft tradition ofBahāuddin Zakariya & Rukn-e-Ālam
Multan is where kāshī kāri is at its most concentrated. Rukn-e-Ālam's tomb of the 1320s and Bahāuddin Zakariya's shrine are faced in glazed tile — cobalt, turquoise and white over brick, with the geometry adjusted to a tapering octagonal drum — and the technique has been practised in the city continuously since. The craft arrived from Kāshān in Iran with Central Asian workmen under the Ghaznavids and after, and the shrines of the Suhrawardi order in Multan are what it was mainly used for.
- Craft tradition ofShah Jahan Mosque, Thatta
The Shāh Jahān Mosque at Thatta is the largest expanse of kāshī kāri anywhere: something close to a hundred domes and every interior surface worked in blue, turquoise and white glazed brick, built in the 1640s with the tilework made locally in Sindh rather than imported. The Sindhi palette is distinct from the Multani and the Persian, and the kilns at Hala and Nasarpur that still throw blue-glazed pottery are the surviving end of the same industry that faced this mosque.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Kashi Kari”. Crafts of Sindh, Sindh Small Industries Corporation documentation; Pakistan Institute of Fashion and Design survey of Hala and Nasarpur kilns.
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