Plain unprinted bleached or unbleached cotton, often used as back cloth in printing.

The Javanese name for a small batik tool consisting of a wooden handle with a copper reservoir from which a spout permits the controlled application of the molten wax to the cloth surface.

The Javanese term for a metal stamp, usually constructed of strips of sheet copper, used in the batik process to apply molten wax to the cloth surface.

A band weaving process in which warps are threaded through holes punched in tablets or cards which are turned to create shed openings for the weft to pass through.

A method of preparing fibers for spinning. It is used to even out the density of short fibers, most often wool, by laying them on the teeth of a wire brush (called a card) and scraping them with another matching wire brush. Cards with metal teeth are first recorded in Europe in the 13th century. Yarns spun from carded wool tend to be weak and spongy.

Safflower, an annual plant cultivated in South Europe, Egypt and Asia, for the red dye from its flowers.

Blocks made of type metal, introduced in the 1850s. Many casts of small repeats were made and riveted on to a hardwood base to form a large block. Also known as stereo blocks.

System of stratification in Hindu society which combines a complex set of rules governing intermarriage with a rigid occupational hierarchy.

Very strong Alkali used for scouring, dyeing and finishing of cotton.

A common flower motif made up of petals that appear cut or split into angular shape.

Covering cloth.

Hindu month of spring between March and April.

Potter’s wheel in Northern India.

Grinding mill in Northern India.

A square hanging, embroidered, appliquéd or of beadworked, from Kutch and Saurashtra in Gujarat.

The wheel, both a Buddhist and Hindu symbol of Divine knowledge (Dharma).

Potters who use the wheel in Bundelkhand, Madhya Pradesh.

Round zari with hole in the centre.

Literally, the "eye bestowal painting" is one carried by the jadu patuas of Bengal to the family of a recently deceased individual wherein all but the eyes are painted, signifying the unincorporated wandering spirit of the dead. It is only after the patua has filled in the eyes that the spirit finds a permanent abode. Also see Jadu-Patuas.

Type of zari motif for highlighting design.

Round tray-like fish traps of Assam.

Decorative wall hangings, usually less than two feet square, Kutch, Gujarat.

Chamba rumals or kerchiefs, from Chamba in Himachal Pradesh, depict mythological and court scenes using the running stitch in outline and darn stitch in fillings with silk threads on muslin. At their best, the scenes appear exactly the same on either side of the fabric.

Jasmine.

Magnolia.

Magnolia bud.

Embroidery design for churi, Gracia Jat, Kutch, Gujarat.

Sandalwood.

A large, usually square, embroidered, appliquéd or block-printed cloth used as a canopy at marriages and other ceremonies in Gujarat and western Rajasthan.

Oil lamp in Kerala.

Blunt edge chisel in North India.

"Four will make one", a design motif in Ajrakh print of Kutch, Gujarat.

The Moosari community of traditional metal casters of the Kammalan caste in Kerala have perfected the complex technique of casting large cauldrons in one single piece, using the lost-wax process. The charakku and the uruli are the two important vessels made by the Musaris. So arduous is the process of preparing the clay mould, the wax replica and the final casting, that elaborate ritual prescriptions are observed by the Musaris for a faultless casting. The preferred metal for casting is bronze.
The stark simplicity of the charakku with its smooth spatial contours lends a resolute solemnity to its size and utility as a ritual cooking vessel for payassam.

Cauldron for cooking payasam, a ritual meal. Made by the cire-perdue method of metal casting by the Moosaris of Kerala.

A pastoral caste of western India, often bards to the local courts.

Painting carried by itinerant picture showman.

A pounce, used for tracing the outlines of paintings in the miniature tradition, Rajasthan.

Chequered pattern.

Literally, one with four legs, a bed.

Brocaded border design of Maheshwari sari.

Ornament engraver in Northern India.

Festival celebrated in Orissa.

A small kiosk or pavilion with umbrella-like dome, Rajasthan.

Four sectioned roof ; it became a prominent motif in the Rajshahi Kantha geometric form of embroidery, West Bengal.

A caste of Muslim carters found in Sind, whose patchwork quilts are noted for their beauty.

Grid motif in the painted pottery of Kutch, Gujarat.

Traditional game of cross board dice.

Chisel for engraving and chasing the design in North India.

Square or rectangular pattern on the sheetal pati of Assam and West Bengal.

To print, in Northern India.

Spring festival in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa involving elaborate ritual dance dramas in honour of Nata Bhairava, the fearful dancing form of Shiva.

Harvest festival celebrated in Madhya Pradesh.

The block printer caste in Northern India. The word chhipa or printer is derived from the Hindi word chhapna, "to print".

Floral whitework embroidery, principally from Lucknow and Bengal.

Chikan embroidery now practised mainly in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Executed in white thread on white muslin, the floral motifs employ satin stitch, buttonhole stitch, darn stitch, knot stitch, netting and appliqué work in a subtle shadowy lace appearance. Noor Jehan, wife of the Mughal emperor Jehangir, is said to have introduced Chikan embroidery.

A coiled wire with lustrous shine.

The chilanum, a dagger with a double-edged, recurved blade, generally has two or more grooves. The hilt is beautifully designed with a wide forked pommel topped by a button and the quillons are of similar shape. Occasionally it has a knuckle guard. It is not clear whether the origins are Maratha or Nepalese.

Silk embroidery on silk produced by Chinese embroiderers in Surat in Gujarat during the 19th and early 20th centuries, depicting Chinese motifs and using Chinese techniques.

Autumn maple leaf, a floral motif employed by Kashmiri papier-mâché painters.

Term of the most refined variety of silk i.e. mulberry, probably introduced into India from China and hence the term.

Broken china mosaic.

Hindu word meaning coloured and variegated which became corrupted in England to ‘chintz’: a printed floral cotton furnishing fabric on a white or natural ground.

A mordant-painted and sometimes batik resist-dyed Indian cotton fabric which usually features an elaborate flowering tree of life on a rocky mound.
Though in English the term is generally applied to highly glazed, printed cotton.

Hereditary painters of Sawantwadi, Maharashtra.

Painter.

The Chitrakathis, a nomadic community of storytellers, were once found all over Maharashtra and some parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Until quite recently they would travel from village to village, unpack their pothi or bundle of rectangular paintings, and narrate myths and legends from the epics, folklore and local legends preserved in their oral tradition.
The painted narratives or Chitrakatha now mainly from Pinguli, Maharashtra, are executed in rectangular panels, generally pasted back-to-back on both sides. They are held up for the audience by means of a bamboo stick and used as aids to narration of legends to the accompaniment of music and songs. There is no clear demarcation of foreground or background and the figures seem to converge and superimpose in a style characteristic of these paintings.

Wool treated with chlorine to decrease the amount of shrinkage and to increase the uptake of dye, and as a preparation prior to printing.

Refers to pure gold, in North India.

The eye pattern. One of the most prolific styles of kantha embroidery, Bengal.

Square mondol, or demarcated square in kantha embroidery, Bengal.

Backless bodice or blouse which forms part of the woman's costume in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Sindh.

Design on sheetalpatti, in Assam and West Bengal.

A phulkari shawl made by the maternal grandmother of a Punjabi girl for presentation at her wedding. The chope is embroidered with a type of double darning stitch so that the design will appear identical on both sides of the shawl.

Jath woman's full-skirted dress.

Cylindrical trap used in Madhya Pradesh for catching fish in flowing water.

Sacred enclosure within an auspicious square whose four corners face the four cardinal directions.

Auspicious symbols or diagrams outlined on the floor by women in Uttar Pradesh.

A group of dyes which use a chrome compound as a mordant.

Forehead ornament, given to Sita by her father Janaka in the Ramayana.

Traditional dress of Jat women;(see also gagah) in Kutch, Gujarat.

The Afghan knife or churra, also called the Khyber knife, although used mainly by the Afghans, has had a wide distribution in India from Mughal times. Indian Museums and Armouries have this weapon in large numbers. The blade can measure anything from 30 centimetres to 70 centimetres and the longer Afghan churra can really not be included in the category of a dagger. The weapon is single edged and its characteristic feature is a perfectly straight back blade. The back edge is thick and reinforced to form a T-shaped cross section. The front edge of the blade tapers gradually from the hilt to the point. The hilt is formed by two hafts of wood, horn or bone, rarely ivory. The lower part of the hilt generally carries an ornamented metal mount. The sheath is wooden, covered with leather or velvet and is reinforced with a metal mount at the tip.

As the name suggests, the lost-wax technique involves the creation of a solid or hollow replica of wax or a wax-like substance, of the image to be cast. The wax from this replica is melted and allowed to flow out, leaving a void to be later filled in by molten metal. Unlike reusable moulds of modern casting technology, the lost-wax method requires each metal image to be created afresh from a different mould so that no two images can ever be identical. The technique of solid casting is predominant in the South, mainly in Tamil Nadu (Swamimalai in Thanjavur, Tiruchirapalli, Madurai, Chingalpet and Salem), Bangalore and Mysore in Karnataka, Palghat in Kerala and Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, that of "hollow" casting (in which case an inner clay mould is required) is largely prevalent in Central and Eastern India.

Colours obtained by distillation and chemical treatment from coal tar, a product of coal during the making of gas.

Red insect mordant dye, obtained mainly from the parasite Dactylopius coccus O. Costa, which lives on prickly cacti plants.

A block, usually of wood, filled with felt to facilitate the printing of bigger areas of colour with as little unevenness as possible.

In engraved or surface roller printing, the colour container in which the furnishing brush or roller rotates. Also known as ‘colour box’.

A rendering of a design on printed fabric in a set of colours differing from the original. Fabrics are usually printed in a set of at least four colourways.

A piece of loom apparatus consisting usually of fine /wood slivers standing vertically between two horizontal bars. The comb acts as a warp-spacer and, when weaving, the weaver beats the comb against the newly inserted weft thread with her sword. It is also known as the reed.

Any type of loom which includes a comb or reed for spacing the warps. In most instances this type of loom is characterized by a discontinuous warp.

A method of preparing fibres for spinning. Fibres are aligned by drawing them through the teeth of a single large comb or transferring them between two combs. The process also separates longer fibres from shorter ones. Yarns spun from combed wool are smoother and stronger than yarns from carded wool, and are known as "worsted".

Threads spun by machine. These include natural fibres such as cotton and silk and synthetic fibres.

The ikat-resist dyeing process applied separately to both warp and weft threads. The fabric is woven to achieve a balanced plain or tabby weave so that the patterning of both sets of loom threads emerges.

Conch the large white sea-shell with a spiral inner structure is used in Bengal, Orissa and other parts of India for blowing as a horn during religious ceremonies. Before any use, it has to be cleaned thoroughly with some blowing shells decorated with elaborately carved designs. Its use as a craft material is confined to Bengal, exclusively to the Sankhakar community. The shell is collected during an annual season in the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu and Kutch and is usually sold to nakhodas-muslim wholesalers, who retail them to craftsmen from their Calcutta bases.

A set of warp threads or partially woven cloth, which make a continuous circle around the breast-beam and warp-beam. When the completed cloth is removed from the loom, it is also circular.

Supplementary weft patterning in which the extra ornamental weft threads are carried back and forth across the full width of the cloth.

A printing block made by hammering in copper or brass strips of varying section.

The art of making coppered blocks.

Fibre from the floss of the seed heads of cotton shrubs of the Gossypium family. (See also handspun cotton).

An embroidery stitch in which threads are laid on the surface of the cloth and tacked in position with small stitches of another thread, which may themselves be arranged or coloured to create a pattern. Decoration with metallic or metallic-wrapped thread is often couched both for economy (no precious metal is wasted on the back) and practicality (the metallic-wrapped thread is not fine or flexible enough to be easily pulled through cloth.

Embroidery technique whereby an even number of background threads are covered with stitchery, in contrast to freely drawn work.

Murshidabad in West Bengal is also famous for its cowdial saris made of fine mulberry silk with flat, deep-red or maroon borders, made with the help of three shuttles. The borders are topped with a fine serrated design in gold zari and a few fine lines in gold on the ground of the sari, close to the borders. The fine gold lines are supposed to resemble the fine trail left on its path by a live cowrie mollusc-thus giving it its name, cowdial.

Open fabric formed by interloping threads with a hooked instruments.

An embroidery style in which two flat stitches of equal length cross the same small area of ground fabric at opposite angles.

See Polymerisation.

A type of openwork embroidery which depends on the cutting and withdrawing of yarn from a woven ground fabric, and the stitching of the remaining threads and edges into decorative patterns. Also known as drawn threadwork.