Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India c9.s3.7

c9.s3.7

As always, the expenditure on women's wardrobe was much more than that on men's. Harem ladies dressed in the best and costliest clothes, whether of cotton, silk or wool. Every day they changed their clothes several times. "Ordinarily," writes Manucci, "they wear two or even three garments, each weighing not more than one ounce, and worth from forty to fifty rupees each. This is without counting the (gold) lace they are in the habit of adding."⁸⁹ Some drawers worn by them were so delicately fine as to wear out in one night. They covered their heads with a sheet of cloth of gold spangled with stars of different makes or wore turbans with an aigrette with ostrich feathers and a ruby plum which too would have been very costly.⁹⁰ Manucci and Bernier talk in general terms, but Abul Fazl gives specific names of cotton, silk and woollen fabrics, Indian as well as those imported from "Turkey, Europe and Portugal".⁹¹ The well known fabrics were Satin, Atlas, Kimkhab, Katan, Tafta, Ambari, Tasser, Pashmina etc. Plain and brocaded velvet (*makhmal*) was imported from Europe, Sashan, Yazd, Mashad, Herat and many other places. By the time of Shahjahan more and more foreign stuffs had begun to be imported.⁹² Internal and external trade, royal workshops and private manufactories, provided the requirements of the *haramsara*. Silk was imported from many foreign countries like China and Persia as well as produced indigenously. Bernier says that the consumption of fine cloths of gold, brocades, silks, embroideries, pearls, musk, amber and sweet essences in the seraglio "is greater than can be conceived". All their clothes were perfumed with essence of rose and other flowers. Abul Fazl's catalogue of perfumes and the method of their preparation shows how much Mughal ladies and lords loved perfumes and how costly they were.⁹³ Even their shoes used to be splendid, some with gold and silver spangles, some indeed were studded with precious stones.