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 t...