A History of Agriculture in India v1.c19.s8: Cotton
A History of Agriculture in India v1.c19.s8
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Cotton
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The Indus Valley civilization is the earliest to have spun and woven cottons. The Babylonian and Greek names for cotton, *Sindhu* and *Sindon*, respectively, point to the Indus Valley as the home of cotton. A statuette of a man from Mohenjo-daro shows him wearing textiles (Fig. 63). The first sample of cotton material was a small fragment of cloth found by D.R. Sahni from Mohenjo-daro. It was found clinging to the side of a silver vase, and was dyed red with madder. Its preservation was due to a fortunate accident, viz. the formation of silver salts from the silver of the vase. Turner and Gulati, of the Technological Laboratory of the Indian Central Cotton Committee, who examined the sample, concluded that it was undoubtedly made of cotton fibre, the typical convoluted structure of cotton being plainly visible. Another sample was received from Mohenjo-daro, viz. small pieces of string found attached to some pottery. The string was found to be 24-fold cotton yarn. The fibre-weight, the number of convolutions, the ribbon-width and the fibre-rigidity of the sample were strikingly similar to those of the coarse Indian cottons of the *arboreum*, *herbaceum* and *indicum* types. Turner and Gulati concluded that this early coarse cotton had been produced from a plant closely related to one of Watt’s *arboreum* types.
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In *Gossypium arboreum*, commonly known as the desi cotton, wild and weedy types have been recorded from Kathiawar, Gujarat, Khandesh and the Deccan. They are perennial, and are hence known as tree-cottons. In *G. herbaceum*, wild and weedy types are known from the coastal strip to the north-west of Karachi, through northern Baluchistan to south Yemen, Ethiopia and the Sudan, and even to western Africa to the south of the Sahara.
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The perennial forms of *Gossypium herbaceum* race *acerifolium* and the perennial forms of *Gossypium herbaceum* race *indicum* are morphologically very much alike, except for differences in their fruiting parts. Genetically also, *Gossypium herbaceum* and *Gossypium arboreum* are very close.
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In *Gossypium arboreum*, two types of perennial cotton were collected by Watt (1907). One of these groups of perennial cotton belonged to the race *indicum* of peninsular India. They were considered to be one of the primitive perennial forms. The so-called Rozi cottons are the cultivated forms of this perennial cotton. All the annual forms of *Gossypium arboreum* cultivated at present are the derivatives of these *indicum* perennials.
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The other perennial forms of this species belonged to the race *burmanicum* distributed in Assam and Burma.
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The Harappans not only grew cotton, but also devised methods of ginning, spinning and weaving it into cloth. Considering the age when it was achieved, it was a great technological advance.
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Cotton cloth seems to be the Harappans' main export to Mesopotamia. From the Mesopotamians they got woollen garments and silver in exchange. The Indus civilization had boats with sails. A terracotta amulet from Mohenjo-daro shows a boat with two birds known as *Dishakaka*. Sailors in those days slowly sailed, hugging the coast-line, and they usually carried shore-sighting birds, e.g. crows, doves and swallows. 'When the ship was out of sight of land, they would set the shore-sighting bird free and it would go to the East, to the South, to the West and to the North and to the intermediate points and rise aloft. If on the horizon it caught sight of land, thither it would go. But if not, it would return to the ship.'¹⁶
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¹⁶ Srivastava, B. *Dishakaka on a terracotta amulet from Mohenjo-daro*, Indian Inst. Adv. Studies, Seminar, Simla, Nov. 1977