In Royal Textiles of Mewar, a look at how fabrics are used to express the rulers' authority and personality

In India, the colour, material and pattern of textiles have great significance in rituals, ceremonies and festivals. They represent the cultural, religious and social aspects of the period to which they belong. Arguably, clothing communicates the philosophical and socio-religious concepts, and cultural history of the people of a time.

In princely India, the royal wardrobe for the court and other official proceedings was no different. In fact, it was one of the most important components of the cultural spectacle.

The royal dress conveyed the authority and supremacy of the ruler while defining his status and personality simultaneously.

The courtly costumes and regalia of the region of Mewar in Rajasthan express the magnificence, richness and elegance of the kingdom and, at the same time, are a significant medium toward understanding the power and authority of the region’s rulers.

This journey is captured succinctly in Royal Textiles of Mewar: The City Palace Museum, Udaipur. Authored by Rosemary Crill (who is the editor as well), Jyoti Jasol, Anamika Pathak, and Smita Singh, the book explores the rich heritage of the textile collection from The City Palace Museum, Udaipur.

With a foreword by Shriji Arvind Singh Mewar of Udaipur, the book captures the formation of the collection, discusses the textiles and clothing at the Mewar court, documents and catalogues Mewar royal costumes and textiles, showcases animal trappings at the court, and establishes Mewar textile regalia as symbols of sovereignty.

The Museum is currently home to the royal textile collection, run by the Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation, with about 2,225 textile objects including costumes and accessories which showcase not only a rich history of the weaves of the region but also share stunning tales of the artists behind them, the occasions they were worn for and the importance these costumes played in the personal and court life of one of India’s oldest royal houses.

Indeed, in the royal culture of Mewar, the poshak (royal dresses), paag (bejewelled headgear), raj gaddi (royal seat), emblems, symbols and lawazama (other paraphernalia) were intertwined in such a manner that they formed an intrinsic part of their sovereignty.

Preserving a legacy

The arduous task of documenting and cataloguing the entire collection was carried out in the year 2014–15, which included strategising for the documentation within a restricted time frame (one year), establishing a documentation section within the Museum, categorising objects, preparing inventory lists and index cards, providing objects an accession number, labelling and marking, and digitally photographing, among other archiving processes.

Before the actual work commenced, an ideal location had been allocated to establish a documentation section in the Zenana Mahal in Bhupal Prakash, a colonial period building with painted walls and ceiling, which is accessible by stairs as well as an early twentieth century wooden elevator.

Smita Singh, co-author of the book, shares that given the vast collection at hand, a category tree was prepared, and the objects were categorised into the following groups and further sub-categorised according to their usage. These were the Zenana costumes (woman’s costumes), Mardana costumes (men’s costumes), children’s costumes, animal trappings (horse and elephant trappings), furnishings (carpets, curtains, quilts, bed sheets and decorative materials), accessories (worn, carried and attached), and miscellaneous items (board games and textile samples).

Jyoti Jasol observes that “the role of women in preserving the heritage goes unnoticed” and mentions that Royal Textiles of Mewar is a story of Rajmata Sahiba Sushila Kumari ji Mewar of Udaipur. “Had Rajmata Sahiba not preserved this valuable legacy, this book would not have been on the table.” she notes and adds, “When I opened the collection, it was very easy for me to read the story through the objects, given the way they were preserved and documented. Her designing talents were par excellence. Her art of preservation was reflected in the trunks and almirahs as I opened them one by one.”

Royal ladies have always been custodians of tradition, values and responsibility, as they encouraged and gave employment to the local artisans, whether it was dyers, karigars, or tailors, who had enough work from the Palace to sustain their families and their livelihoods. And this was carried on from generation to generation.

The collection and its provenance

The furnishings and garments preserved at the City Palace Museum in Udaipur are part of a long tradition of courtly dresses and ceremonial textiles in Mewar.

The court, known as darikhana in Mewar, and durbar elsewhere in Rajasthan, found countless use for cloth in its daily and ceremonial life — as furnishings for the living spaces for both rulers and attendants; garments worn by the Maharana and his courtiers on ceremonial occasions and every day; gifts of robes and accessories bestowed by the ruler on his nobles, visiting dignitaries and people who had performed a valuable service; and as adornments for horses and elephants during processions and rituals.

The collection that survives today in the museum is not an ancient one — most of the pieces date back to the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. While the collection may not have a long history, it represents the most recent expression of a long and honoured tradition of royal attire and furnishing that was as avidly maintained in Mewar as it was in other Rajput courts.

In her essay in the book, Textiles and dress at the Mewar court, co-author

Rosemary Crill notes that, “While the pieces themselves may not be centuries old, there is a wealth of evidence from literature and painting, as well as from archives, that confirm their long and significant history.”

A portmanteau of textiles

The collection has a variety of woven textiles like saris, odhanas, cummerbunds and quilts, mostly dating from the late nineteenth or early twentieth century onwards. Most of them are from Banaras (Varanasi) or Ahmedabad. The attractive Asavari (in Mewar) or Ashawali brocades are probably named after the city of Ashaval, as Ahmedabad was once known. Ashaval was probably the main production centre of these brocades in the sixteenth century.

Singh shares that from the archival records it is evident that the Mewar royal family were great patrons of the Asavari sari as well as the Asavari cummerbund. She adds, “The famous Benaras ‘Shikargah (‘hunting ground’) sari’ is also in the collection. It is a brocade sari with woven metal-wrapped thread forming a dibbidar jal (chequered trellis) motif with elephants, peacocks, parrots and butis (small flower motifs).”

Another significant and gorgeous woven fabric in the collection is tash fabric (cloth-of-gold). The tash fabric was woven with gold/silver metal-strips in warp/weft in combination with silk or cotton fibre to produce the luxurious, flexible and dazzling fabric, which was used for making garments as well as the processional standards.

Singh states that in the nineteenth century these fabrics were very expensive and sold as per the weight of the fabric and the price was calculated as per the tola, a unit of measuring gold in ancient India and South Asia. The main production centres of tash fabric were Aurangabad, Hyderabad, Surat, Ahmedabad, Varanasi, Bihar and Murshidabad.

As per the Bahidas (log-books) of Mewar rulers (which were carefully preserved and were a great source of information to the authors) these tash fabrics were made-to-order from Banaras. Amongst these objects, the star object is the woman’s poshak (ensemble of Odhana-ghaghara-kurti-kanchali) which is made of tash fabric with karchobi embroidery, including gijai, dapka, nakshi, bankdi, katori, kalabattun, silk threads, beetle-wing pieces and danka (with some enamelling) and patterned in a floral trellis with bel and peacock motifs on the borders.

A record of the past

Documenting the heritage and culture of a region renowned for its uniqueness and showcasing them through costumes, the book preserves the sanctity attached to them by not reducing them to the footnotes of history. Rather, it approaches them as part of a living heritage which ensures that the history associated these weaves can be applied to the future.

Capturing all the facets, from clothes to royal tents and encampments as well as furnishings at the Mewar court, the book highlights the intrinsic way in which the use of textiles is intertwined with everyday life in India.

Through their arduous research and documentation, the authors have ensured that the glory of the past is carried on and their stories remain intact and available for generations to come.