Dukula

What is Dukula?

Dukula is a cloth of early India. Its yarn came from tree bark, and for that reason it counts as a fine linen rather than silk, even though it was often grouped with silk-like fabrics and sometimes taken for silk itself. Weavers in Bengal were known for making cloth of this family, and the Arthashastra names that region as a producer. In the poetry of the period it belongs to gods and kings. What survives as praise is its fineness, and the swan-patterned kind was singled out above the rest.

Where does Dukula come from?

Dukula belongs to ancient India. Amarasimha treated the word as another name for ksauma, that is, linen. Gupta period writing held it in high regard, and later Sanskrit authors kept it in view. Banabhatta, a seventh-century scholar who served as Asthana Kavi at the court of King Harsha Vardhana, speaks of hansa dukula, cloth bearing the hansa or swan. His Harshacharita lists fabrics shown at an exhibition during the wedding of Harsha's sister Rajyashri, and among them are dukula, amshuka, kshauma, badara and netra. Kalidasa names dukula in the Kumarasambhava, the Vikramorvashiya and the Ritusamhara, and he called it silk.

How is Dukula made?

Yarn for dukula came from tree bark, and the source explains that this origin is what makes the cloth a fine linen: the fibre was bark, not silk thread. Suggestions that it was silk are called mistaken. Bengal was the well-known centre for making cloths of this kind, and Kautilya's Arthashastra credits Bengal with dukula. Nothing is said in the sources about the loom, the dyeing, the finishing, or how long a length took.

Colours, motifs and borders

Pattern is the clearest thing the sources leave us. The celebrated variety takes its name from the swan: hansa dukula, where hansa means swan or goose. Writing of the Gupta period calls this patterned cloth perhaps the finest of its day. Beyond the swan, no motif, border or colour is named, and the sources say nothing about how the cloth was ornamented, so the look of a piece can only be inferred from the praise of its fineness.

How Dukula is worn

No drape is set out in the sources. They record only that gods and kings wore dukula, and that Kalidasa brings the cloth into a scene of the Kumarasambhava where the dress of Shiva and Parvati is set side by side. Beyond that, nothing: no length, no blouse, no petticoat, no way of wrapping or tying the cloth is described anywhere in the material.

When Dukula is worn

As the poetry has it, dukula was cloth for gods and kings. Banabhatta's list of fabrics gathered for an exhibition at the wedding of Harsha's sister Rajyashri places it in courtly display and celebration rather than ordinary life. The sources record no daily wear, no festival, no mourning use, and no rite attached to the cloth beyond its appearance on deities in verse.

Styles of Dukula

Dukula is named beside kshauma, netra, tiritpatta, amshuka and badara, cloths of the same period which the article says were likened to silk. How these differed from one another, or which came first, is not explained. Within dukula, one variety is described, the swan-patterned hansa dukula. Modern versions, powerloom copies and revivals are not mentioned at all in the sources.

What Dukula means

The cloth survives mostly in writing. Poets of the Gupta age and after used it as a yardstick of fineness, and Banabhatta placed it in a royal inventory alongside other prized textiles. Kalidasa's three references keep dukula in the literary record, and the swan version gave the language a phrase, hansa dukula. The sources describe no living weaving community, no official recognition, and no present-day life for the cloth.

Questions people ask about Dukula

Good reading and sources

• Dukula on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data