Bandhani

What is Bandhani?

Bandhani is a tie-dye cloth from India. The maker pinches up small points of the fabric and binds each one with thread, often plucking the cloth with a fingernail, so that hundreds or thousands of knots sit across it. Dye cannot reach the bound points, so they stay pale while the rest takes colour, and a dotted, flower-like design appears when the knots are opened. Loosely woven silk, known as georgette, and a fine cotton called malmal are common grounds, with chiffon and crepe used now too. The cloth becomes saris, odhnis and turbans.

Where does Bandhani come from?

Bandhani takes its name from bandh, a Sanskrit root meaning to bind or to tie. Dyeing in this part of the world is ancient: Indus Valley sites point to the practice by about 4000 BCE, and the old city of Mohenjo-daro may hold early traces of the art. Dots of the kind used here can be seen in sixth-century wall paintings of the Buddha's life at the Ajanta Caves, and texts from the age of Alexander the Great speak of India's printed cottons. The first bandhani sari to be recorded appears in Bāṇabhaṭṭa's Harshacharita, at a royal wedding. Dyers have spent centuries testing new materials and fresh ways of tying.

How is Bandhani made?

Tying is patient work rather than heavy work. The old grounds were malmal, handloom cloth or silk; chiffon, georgette and crepe are used today. Cloth is washed to clear the starch, bleached for a clean base, then folded into two or four layers. A designer blocks the pattern onto it in geru, a clay earth pigment mixed with water. Every area that should keep its ground colour is lifted and knotted. The first set of ties goes into yellow dye; the cloth is tied again and dipped in red or green. Shades move from light to dark, and a darker edge is managed by covering the lighter parts in plastic foil. Each round of tying and dipping adds detail. In some Rajasthan workshops, craftsmen wear a metal ring with a pointed nail to help pluck the cloth.

Colours, motifs and borders

Yellow, red, blue, green and black lead the palette. Red is tied to marriage and to the rites of married women. Yellow speaks of spring and of childbirth. Saffron belongs to the renouncer, whether a warrior who gives up life or a yogi who gives up the world, and black and maroon are worn in mourning. Designs bear names such as chandrakala, bavan baug and shikari, and a single cloth may carry one motif or alternate large and small ones. Old colour came from natural materials: red and indigo from flowers, yellow from turmeric and buttermilk.

How Bandhani is worn

Bandhani is worn as a sari, as an odhni, the draped length carried over the shoulder, and as a turban. A sari goes round the waist with pleats in front and the end brought across the shoulder, over a blouse and petticoat. The sources describe no drape that belongs to bandhani alone. What they do record is that a bandhani sari was a ritual necessity for married women in Gujarat and Rajasthan, and that turbans and odhnis with intricate patterns were the pieces dyed with the greatest care.

When Bandhani is worn

Both men and women wear bandhani in Gujarat and Rajasthan, but the sari form is bound up with ceremony. Married women treat it as necessary for many rites, and it is a prized possession kept in a bridal trousseau. A Gujarati bride may wear a ghar chola for her wedding, a bandhani sari given by her mother-in-law; the name means a robe for the home, and in ritual use it means dress for the husband's house. In Rajasthan, a woman who is expecting or has just given birth is sent a peeley ki sari, yellow with a broad red bandhani border, from her parents' home.

Styles of Bandhani

Gujarat and Rajasthan work with different colours and designs, and pieces from the Kutch belt are called Kutchi bandhani. Across northern Kutch, western Rajasthan and Sindh in Pakistan, the bold patterns share motifs and methods. Fine work is made in Pethapur, Mandvi, Bhuj, Anjar, Jetpur, Jamnagar, Rajkot, Porbandar, Udaipur, Jaipur, Ajmer, Bikaner and Churu. Bhuj has a name for red; dyers there say the local water lends brightness, particularly to reds and maroons. Tamil Nadu knows the same craft as sungudi.

Care and buying

Two dye classes matter to anyone keeping a bandhani piece. Kaccha colour fades and washes away, and was long the preferred choice because it could be renewed whenever it dulled; the most complicated turbans and odhnis were dyed in kaccha. Pakka colour does not come off easily, and was thought a better fit for older people.

What Bandhani means

There is meaning in the cloth as well as pattern. Red is believed auspicious for a bride, and many hold that a bandhani sari brings a good future to the woman who wears it. In Kutch and Saurashtra the work has been carried on by the Khatri community, with tying done at home, mostly by women, and skills handed down inside households. Dyeing is done widely in Bhuj, whose water is credited with deepening reds and maroons.

Questions people ask about Bandhani

Good reading and sources

• Encyclopaedia BritannicaArticle

• Bandhani on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data