Bomkai Sarees

Cotton Bomkai Saree

Although weaving is believed to have been an art in Orissa from as early as 600 BC, Ikat or tie-and-dye techniques are believed to been brought to Orissa sometime in the mid-14th century when 100 weavers families were apparently brought to Orissa from Raipur in Madhya Pradesh by Raja Ramai Dev, the ruler of Patnagarh. That said, the origins of Ikat in Orissa are unclear: there are also tales of weavers having shifted to Orissa from Gujarat, and of Ikat being an ‘import’ from Indonesia where it may have originated.

As far as Bomkai sarees themselves are concerned, they have evolved over the last half century. Early Bomkai sarees from Bomkai in Ganjam, Orissa, were made of coarse cotton (10 to 40 counts), were 12 feet long and 36 inches wide, and were dyed with vegetable and other natural dyes. In the 1950s, sarees of finer cotton began to be produced, and chemical dyes began being used, and by the 1980s, silk was introduced for the body of the saree although the endpiece and borders would still be woven of cotton.

The motifs used on Bomkai sarees tend to feature highly stylised flora and fauna in regular ‘blocks’ or panels, and are woven along the weft with extra, often thicker, threads. Their borders are often plain or almost plain with a ‘stripe’ of single Ikat patterns on them and, possibly, some thread-work featuring rudraksha or some other small-sized motif. The bodies of the sarees tend to be largely plain although, more often than not, they contain stylised butis of flowers, fish or birds. Zari was not traditionally used in Bomkai sarees but is sometimes used in contemporary sarees.