Printed, dyed and tied

Where

Kutch, Jamnagar and Saurashtra in Gujarat; Jodhpur, Jaipur and other towns of Rajasthan

Who

In Gujarat, families of the Khatri community; the tying is mostly done by women at home

Made with

Cotton or silk, thread and dye

The name comes from the Sanskrit bandh, to tie. The cloth is pinched up into tiny points with the fingernails and each point is wound tightly with thread. When the cloth is dipped, the tied points stay undyed. For more colours, more points are tied and the cloth goes into a darker dye, so the lightest colour always comes first. Untied, the cloth is covered in small dots, called bindi or bheendi, that make up flowers, figures and borders. The sari in the picture is a 19th-century one from Gujarat. GI tags: "Kutch Bandhani" and "Jamnagari Bandhani" (Gujarat) and "Jodhpur Bandhej Craft" (Rajasthan).

Where

Rajasthan, mainly Jaipur and Jodhpur

Made with

Thin cotton or silk, thread and dye

Lahar means wave. The thin cloth is rolled diagonally from one corner to the opposite edge, tied at intervals along the roll, and dipped in dye. Untied, it shows diagonal stripes. Folding the cloth like a fan before rolling turns the stripes into zigzag waves, as in the 19th-century turbans in the picture. If the ties are moved and the cloth is rolled along the other diagonal and dyed again, the stripes cross to make a check called mothara, after moth, a lentil, because the undyed squares are about that size.

Where

Ajrakhpur and Dhamadka in Kutch, Gujarat; Barmer, Rajasthan; and Sindh in Pakistan

Who

Khatri printing families, whose craft came from Sindh

Made with

Cotton, natural dyes (indigo, madder, iron black) and resist pastes

Ajrakh is a block print with deep indigo blue and madder red, outlined in black and white. Its patterns are mostly geometric: stars, lens shapes and grids of small flowers, which repeat across the cloth. It takes many rounds of printing resists and mordants, dyeing, washing and drying, so one piece can take days or weeks. Khatri printers settled at Dhamadka in Kutch centuries ago. After the 2001 Gujarat earthquake many moved to a new village they named Ajrakhpur, now the best-known centre. "Kutch Ajrakh" has a GI tag.

Where

Bagru, about 30 km south-west of Jaipur, Rajasthan

Who

The Chhipa community of printers

Made with

Cotton, carved wooden blocks and natural dyes

Bagru printers first soak the cloth in harda (myrobalan), which gives it a soft cream or yellowish ground. They then print in two classic colours: syahi, a black made from iron left to ferment with jaggery, and begar, a red that comes from alum and madder. The motifs are bold flowers, leaves and buds. Bagru is also a centre of Dabu, the mud resist. "Bagru Hand Block Print" has a GI tag.

Where

Sanganer, on the southern edge of Jaipur, Rajasthan

Who

The Chhipa community of printers

Made with

Fine cotton or silk, teak blocks, and dyes

Sanganer, next to Jaipur, is famous for delicate block prints on a white ground. The motifs are small, fine-lined flowers and sprigs, called buti when small and buta when larger, often in rows. Fine outline blocks are printed first and the colours are filled in with further blocks. "Sanganeri Hand Block Printing" has a GI tag.

Where

Akola in Chittorgarh district, Bagru, Sanganer and Pipar in Rajasthan

Made with

A paste of black clay, lime, wheat chaff and gum; wooden blocks; indigo

In Dabu the block prints a sticky mud paste instead of colour. Sawdust is sprinkled on the wet mud so it doesn't smudge. When the paste is dry the cloth is dipped in dye, most often indigo, and the mud keeps the dye out. As the dry mud cracks, a little dye seeps through, leaving fine veins. Printing and dyeing again over the first layer gives more shades of blue.

Where

Bagh, Dhar district, Madhya Pradesh, on the Bagh river

Who

Khatri printers whose families came from Sindh

Made with

Cotton or silk, natural dyes, alum and iron

Bagh prints are block prints in red and black on white. The red comes from alizarin, the colouring of madder, fixed with alum, and the black from iron. The motifs are geometric shapes, paisleys and flowers. The printed cloth is washed in the flowing water of the Bagh river, a tributary of the Narmada, and dried in the sun. "Bagh Prints of Madhya Pradesh" has a GI tag.

Where

Java in Indonesia is its best-known home; in India, Santiniketan (West Bengal) and Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh)

Made with

Cotton or silk, hot wax and dye

In batik, the resist is wax. Hot wax is drawn onto cloth with a small spouted copper tool, the canting (tjanting), or stamped on with a metal block, and the cloth is dyed. The waxed parts stay the colour underneath. Wax can be added and dyed again for more colours, then boiled or scraped off. Where the wax cracks, dye creeps in and leaves fine lines, the famous crackle. UNESCO listed Indonesian Batik as Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2009. The cloth in the picture is from northern Java, made around 1900 to 1910. In India, "Santiniketan Batik Textile" and "Ujjain Batik Print" have GI tags.

Where

Japan; Arimatsu, near Nagoya, is a famous centre

Made with

Cotton or silk, thread, boards and poles; most often indigo

Shibori is Japan's family of resist methods, named from a word meaning to wring or squeeze. The cloth is shaped before it is dyed. In kanoko small bits are bound with thread, much like bandhani. In arashi the cloth is wrapped around a pole, bound and pushed together, giving diagonal lines like rain in a storm. In itajime it is folded and clamped between boards. In nui it is stitched and the thread pulled tight. The picture shows bound cloth from Arimatsu next to a finished piece.

Where

Grown in many parts of India; the plant Indigofera tinctoria was first domesticated here

Made with

Leaves of the indigo plant, fermented in water

India's great blue dye, and the source of the colour of blue jeans. The leaves are soaked and fermented in tanks, and the liquid is beaten so air reaches it, making blue indigo settle out. It is dried into cakes. In the dye vat the indigo dissolves as a pale yellow-green; when the cloth is lifted out it turns blue in the air, and each dip makes it darker. It needs no mordant. The photograph shows an indigo factory near Allahabad in 1877. Under British rule many farmers were forced to grow indigo, and the Champaran Satyagraha in Bihar in 1917, against this, was Mahatma Gandhi's first satyagraha in India.

Made with

The roots of the madder vine (Rubia cordifolia), dried and ground

Madder is India's classic red. The dye is in the roots, not the leaves or flowers in the picture. On plain cotton it gives only a weak stain; on cloth printed with alum it turns a strong, lasting red, and on cloth printed with iron it goes purple or brown. That is why one dip in madder can give two or three colours on a block print. Many printers today use alizarin, madder's red colouring, made in factories since the 19th century.

Where

Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere

Who

Block carvers, and printers such as the Chhipa of Rajasthan and the Khatri of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh

Made with

Teak or sheesham wood blocks, cotton, dyes and mordants

Each design needs a set of blocks: an outline block (rekh) and filling blocks for the colours (datta) and background (gadh). The printer lines up each block by eye against the last print, presses it down and thumps it with a fist, then moves along the cloth. Pethapur, in Gandhinagar district of Gujarat, is famous for carving blocks, and "Pethapur Printing Blocks" has its own GI tag.