The History of Bengal (Vol. I: Hindu Period; Vol. II: Muslim Period 1200–1757) v1.c19.s7.2

v1.c19.s7.2

The history of textile manufacture in Bengal goes back to the remotest antiquity. At the time when the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya was composed, it was already a well-established industry with a wide reputation in the country.⁵ The author mentions four varieties of textile commodities which were produced in Bengal in his time, viz. kshauma, dukūla, patrorṇa and kārpāsika. Kshauma¹ was linen, but of a coarse variety, being mixed with cotton. Its chief seats of manufacture were Puṇḍravardhana (North Bengal) and Benares. A pure and finer form of linen was called dukūla. It was of three varieties; the first, produced in Lower Bengal (Vaṅgaka), was white and soft; the second, produced in North Bengal (Pauṇḍraka), was black and “as soft as the surface of a gem;” while the third, manufactured at Suvarṇakuḍya in Kāmarūpa, had the “colour of rising sun.” Patrorṇa appears to have been wild silk. Amara (II. vi, 3, 14) defines it as “a bleached or white kausheya,” while the commentator says that it was a fibre produced by the saliva of a worm on the leaves of certain trees. According to Kauṭilya, nāga tree, likucha (artocarpus lakoocha), vakula (mimusops elengi) and vaṭa (ficus bengalensis) were the sources of these fibres. The author adds that patrorṇa was produced in three regions, viz. Magadha, Puṇḍra and Suvarṇakuḍya. It is significant that wild silk of the best quality is still produced in these districts. Kārpāsika obviously meant cotton fabrics. These were manufactured in various parts of India, but Vaṅga and six other regions, as Kauṭilya affirms, produced the best variety.