Leheriya

What is Leheriya?

Leheriya is a tie-dye cloth from Rajasthan, in western India, and its name has travelled from the Sanskrit lahara, meaning wave. Dyers work on thin cotton or silk, usually in lengths cut for a dupatta, a turban or a sari. What you see is a set of stripes running on the slant, some carrying colour and some left bare, so each piece holds the ripple that wind leaves on sand. Jaipur and Jodhpur are the busiest centres. The article places the craft in Rajasthan and nowhere else.

Where does Leheriya come from?

Rajasthan is the only home this craft claims, and it stays inside the state. Jaipur and Jodhpur carry most of the work, with dyeing also going on in Udaipur and Nathdwara. The word comes from lahara, a Sanskrit term for a wave, which is also the shape the dyers are chasing: those marks that wind draws on the sand of western Rajasthan. No founding date is recorded anywhere in the sources. Men wore leheriya turbans as ordinary business dress through the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth, and the cloth still sells today.

How is Leheriya made?

A length of thin cotton or silk is wound on the slant and knotted at measured gaps. Then comes the dip: the bound parts hold the dye back while the open cloth takes it, so the pattern arrives as waves. Folds opened out like a fan before dyeing give the stripes their curve. Natural dyes are used, with several washings between stages, and the last bath is indigo or alizarin. Mothara needs a second pass. The first bindings are untied, the cloth is wound the other way and tied again, and small bare spots appear in a grid. A lentil is moth in Hindi, so the spots are called mothara.

Colours, motifs and borders

Colour and bare cloth do the work here. Stripes cross the length at a slant, in bands that widen and narrow, and the uncoloured ground between them counts as part of the design rather than as empty space. Indigo and alizarin, a red, are the two dyes named for the final stage. Mothara sets a grid over the stripes: crossing the first set of ties with a second set leaves small round spots of undyed cloth at regular distances. The cloth is thin enough to fold and tie easily.

How Leheriya is worn

The sources do not describe a sari drape for leheriya. It is made in whatever length each garment needs: a piece for a dupatta, a narrower strip for a turban, a longer length for a sari. The thinness of the cotton or silk is what lets it be folded and wrapped close around the head or the body. Beyond that, the article gives no blouse, petticoat or pleat detail.

When Leheriya is worn

For men in Rajasthan in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a leheriya turban was working dress, not something kept for a special day. The cloth still has a market at Jodhpur, Jaipur, Udaipur and Nathdwara. Now and then it reaches the catwalk: Malini Ramani showed a beach collection using it at the Delhi fashion show in spring 2006. The article ties it to no festival and no rite.

Styles of Leheriya

One variant is documented: mothara, the checked version that comes from tying the cloth a second time along the opposite slant, leaving lentil-sized spots of undyed cloth. Sellers handle leheriya in a particular way, keeping most of the resist ties in place and unrolling only a small part to display the pattern, so a buyer can see the binding is real. The sources say nothing about powerloom copies or about other regional forms.

Care and buying

The article says nothing about washing, drying or storage. It does describe one thing to check at the point of sale: much of the cloth should still carry its resist ties, with only a small section opened out to show the pattern. That band of knots is offered as proof that the piece was tied and dyed by hand rather than printed.

What Leheriya means

The craft belongs to Rajasthan alone. Its stripes copy a natural mark, the wave the wind draws on western desert sand, and dyers borrowed the name of that wave for the cloth itself. For a long stretch of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a leheriya turban carried a man's working identity in the state. Newer use is occasional and fashionable, as when a designer put leheriya into a spring 2006 Delhi beach collection.

Questions people ask about Leheriya

Good reading and sources

• Leheriya on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data