Banarasi Brocades: Threads of Gold from Varanasi

From Kabir's loom in the 15th century to the legal victory of 2009, the story of Banarasi silk and the weavers who kept it alive.

In the 15th century, a Muslim weaver called Kabir sat at a loom in Banaras. He sang songs about weaving while he worked. One of his songs said that the cloth on a loom is like a human life. It is given to us clean. We must return it clean. Six hundred years later, the weavers of Banaras are still at their looms, still singing Kabir's songs. This lesson follows their story: the Mughal court that shaped their patterns, the British mills that broke their market, the legal victory of 2009 that finally gave their craft a defended name, and the question Kabir first asked of his cloth. Can it be returned clean?

A Stone Room in Kashi

In a small stone room a few lanes from the river Ganga, in the city of Kashi (now called Varanasi), a Muslim weaver sits at his loom. The year is about 1480. His loom is a wooden frame with a shuttle and a few hundred cotton threads. His hands throw the shuttle. His feet press the pedals. As he works, he sings.

The weaver's name is Kabir. He was born in the Julaha caste, the weavers of Banaras. A poor Muslim couple, Niru and Nima, raised him. He went to no school. He joined no formal religion. But he sang while he worked. And his songs are still being sung today, by both Hindus and Muslims, six hundred years later.

One of his songs begins with the sound of his own loom:

झीनी झीनी बीनी चदरिया। काहे के ताना काहे के भरनी, कौन तार से बीनी चदरिया॥

jhīnī jhīnī binī cadariyā kāhe ke tānā kāhe ke bharanī, kauna tāra se binī cadariyā

Fine, fine, is woven the cloth. What thread forms its warp? What thread its weft? With which thread is this chadariya being woven?

Kabir, chadariya doha (c. 1480)

For Kabir, the cloth on his loom is not really a cloth. It is a human life. The threads are the body. The weaver is God. The loom is the body. The cloth is given to us clean. We must return it clean. That is his whole teaching.

Six hundred years later, the weavers of Banaras are still sitting at pit looms near the same river. About three hundred thousand of them, by current estimates. They still weave silk and gold. Some of their sarees are real handloom silk with real gold-coated silver thread. Some are machine-made copies with plastic thread, sold as the real thing. The weavers know the difference. Most buyers do not. Kabir's question, the one he asked of his own cloth, is the question this tradition still asks itself. Can the chadariya be returned clean?