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A person at the back of the loom would manipulate the jala, which acted as a master harness lifting and dropping the warp threads to a predetermined pattern. Subsequently, the patterns were created with the help of a jala, or harness, attached to the loom. The elaborate patterns are created in kadwa kaam, where multiple wefts are interlaced to create a pattern, and two weavers need to sit next to each other to manipulate the threads manually to create the patterns. Gyasar brocades are woven on a dense silk warp 56 centimetres in width, to a maximum length of 3.5 metres to maintain the tautness of the warp. The elaborately patterned gyasar brocades of superior quality are also used in clothing and home furnishings, and there is a growing demand for them from the fashion industry in India and overseas. They export these brocades to Tibet via Kathmandu and Mongolia. Only Haji Shamshuddin Ansari (Tafseerbhai’s father), operating through their family firm, Kasim Arts, continued the tradition and today their business has expanded exponentially. Most of the weavers in this area switched to weaving sarees for the local market. In the 1950s, when China took over Tibet, the export of brocades from India was adversely affected. He lives and works in the Pili Kothi area, where many families wove the special gyasars for the monasteries, and ceremonial clothing for the Dalai Lama and high priests in Tibet. These ceremonial brocades are called gyasars in India.įor many generations, Haji Tafseer Ahmed Ansari’s family has been weaving intricate gyasar and other brocade fabrics for the Tibetan market.
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The Tibetan monks were so captivated by the Mughal kinkhwab brocades that in the mid-1800s they commissioned the weavers of Benares to develop the gos-chen, ceremonial tapestries, earlier sourced from China. Under the patronage of the Mughal court, these luxurious brocades reached a high level of excellence and came to be known as kinkhwab, the fabric of dreams. With the migration of silk weavers from Gujarat during the famine of 1603, it is likely that silk brocade weaving and the widespread use of silk may have started there in the early 17th century. References in old Pali texts suggest that Benares was earlier a centre for cotton weaving.