Saree Search

Bandhani tie-and-dye saree (Photo: Mandayamr ) The earliest visual evidence of Bandhani or tie-and-dye patterning in India comes from paintings in the Ajanta caves which date to the 6th and 7th centuries while the earliest textual reference seems to be in Bana’s Harshacharita detailing the life of the 7th century King Harsh. Today, Bandhani is predominantly associated with Gujarat and Rajasthan, although it is also seen in South Indian Sungudi sarees. Fabric is dyed after ‘knots’ have been tied on it in often circular patterns typically associated with Bandhani possibly with the help of fingernails, beads, or grains – the use of nails is far more common in Rajasthan than in Gujarat. The motifs are usually tied onto the cloth using a simple cotton thread with one thread being used for a number of ‘knots’ (each of which is basically a bit of fabric pinched and tied so that when the cloth is later dyed, the parts of the fabric ‘protected’ by the tied thread remain undyed, reveali...

Sungudi Saree In the 17 th century, King Thirumalai Nayak of Madurai is believed to have supported the artisans who introduced Sungudi or Chungidi sarees to Madurai and who had apparently migrated from Gujarat and Saurashtra. These sarees begin as unbleached cotton sarees upon which markings are made, possibly square or circular ringed dots, often to form the kind of designs which may be seen in rangoli . If the markings on the sarees are made with resist, the sarees may then be dyed directly. More commonly, however, once marked, each mark is tied with thread to enable to tied portion of fabric to later resist being dyed. Sarees can have up to twenty thousand marks or puttas which need to be tied before they are dyed; once dyed, the thread is removed, and the parts of the fabric protected by thread appear as white dots against a dark background. Traditionally, the colours red, green, and orange were primarily used but, with the introduction of chemical dyes, there are no res...