The Story of Dhaka’s Muslin Cloth: How Bengal gave the world a luxurious touch

Bengal’s Muslin cloth was praised highly throughout the ancient and medieval world. Weavers of Dhaka enchanted global fashion as the world adored this cloth for how fine, light and ‘wind-like’ it was. Such cloth could not be reproduced by any other nation!

Weaving in Bengal is present even in Bengals oldest literature — the Charyapadas চর্যাপদ are a Buddhist caryagiti poem collection of the 8th century which mentions on palm leaves of the loom, yarn and weaving!

There are pop-ups of Muslin throughout our history! Megasthenes, Greek historian & ambassador to the court of The Maurya Empire wrote “the Indians wore flowered garments made of the finest muslin and trinkets of gold on their fingers and in their ears”

Muslin cloth was picked up by 17th century Mughals, Dhaka’s cloth was seen as a symbol of elegance and poetically refered to by terms such as ab-rawan (running water) — Going back to the 12th century, Muslin dupattas were worn by women depicted in Buddhist manuscripts

Muslin can be seen being worn way back through these 2nd century CE sculptures from Chandraketugarh, West Bengal!

Im sure we’ve all seen European and American women in history books wearing this — This is Muslin cloth woven from Dhaka! It was popularized in America and in France by Empress Josephine. This heavenly fabric from the waters of মেঘনা নদী was in high demand in Europe and America.

4,000 year old mummies of Egypt were wrapped in fine Indian muslin! Egyptian texts & artifacts show an import of goods from India, revealing there was active trade between Ancient India & Ancient Egypt