Tradition · silk-weaving tradition · India
Sualkuchi silk, Kamrup
Also known as Assam, Assam silk village, Kamrup, Kamrup, Assam, Sualkuchi silk
The Sualkuchi silk-weaving tradition at Sualkuchi in Kamrup district, Assam — the 1-century-old (traditional attribution to 11-century Pala period) Assamese silk-weaving centre on the Brahmaputra river bank, 35 kilometres from Guwahati. Sualkuchi is called 'Manchester of the East' for its concentration of over 100,000 weaver families producing muga silk (the golden silk unique to Assam), eri silk, and pat silk. Muga silk is made from the Antheraea assamensis moth that eats the som and soalu tree leaves, producing a naturally golden-coloured silk that is strong and durable. GI tag for Muga silk in 2007 and for the Sualkuchi weaving tradition more broadly in 2017. The 2013 Sualkuchi Weavers Society protects the traditional handloom weavers against the growing power-loom imitation industry. Modern Sualkuchi produces 30% of India's handloom silk.
- Function
- Trade & production
- Confidence
- Not assessed
- Location
- 26.170, 91.570
Connections (3)
- Craft tradition ofPaithan (Paithani)
Sualkuchi weaves muga, a wild silk produced nowhere on earth but Assam, which is naturally golden and grows glossier with washing; Paithan weaves mulberry silk with tapestry borders in a Godāvari town that was a Sātavāhana capital. Both concentrated where a court paid — the Ahoms at one, the Peshwas at the other — and both are now worked mainly by women in household workshops.
- AnalogueKanchipuram silk
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.
- Patronage networkSattriya, Majuli
Sualkuchi's weaving grew under the Ahom kings and alongside the Vaishnava sattras of Shankaradeva's movement, which needed silk for the ritual cloth, the bhaona costume and the gosain's seat. A monastic order and a weaving town on the same river fed each other for four centuries, and muga silk remains the fabric of Assamese ceremonial dress — the mekhela sador in which the golden thread is the whole point.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Assam”. Geographical Indications Registry (Government of India) filings; Ministry of Textiles and Sangeet Natak Akademi craft documentation.
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