WEAVING is an art that has existed in India in all ita perfection from the earliest period of which there is any record. In the Institutes of Menu, compiled perhaps 1400 years before the Christian era, weaving is spoken of as a familiar handicraft. That the product was woven cloth of cotton or silk or wool, is shown by Menu (Insti tutes, ch. viii. ver. 30), who saya: 'Let a weaver who has received ten pains of cotton thread, give them back increased to eleven by the rice water and the like used in weaving. He who does other wise shall pay a fine of twelve panas.' It appears, therefore, that 'size' was used in the process as it is at present. And in eh. v. it is further directed that ' silk and woollen stuffs are to be washed or purified with saline earths, and cloths by washing or sprinkling.' We have thus evidence of the existence of silk, woollen, and cotton cloths; and in ch. x., among articles which Brahmans are prohibited to sell, all woven cloth dyed red, cloth made of Sana or Kshuma bark (whatever that may have been), and of wool, even not red,' are enutnerated. No trace of linen cloth made from flax is to be found in Menu or any of the earlier works of the Hindus; and it is probable that flax had never been made from the linseed plant for the manufacture of yarn for weaving.
The great epic poem the Ramayana, possibly as old as 1200 to 1400 years B.C., affords very dis tinct evidence of the existence of silk cloths. It is mentioned that when the brides of Rama and his brothers returned home, their mothers-in-law, sumptuously clad in silk, hastened to the templea of the gods to offer incense,' etc.
Actual knowledge of the fabrics produced by the most ancient looms is gained from the speci mens yielded by the mummy pits of Egypt. For burial purposes linen alone was there employed, on account both of its cleanliness and its lasting qualities. Linen formed the special dress of the priests, it being the sytnbol of purity, and not liable, like woollen garments, to be infested with insects or parasites. There are samples in the British Museum very fine in texture, the finest being found woven with threads of about 100 hanks to the pound, with 140 threads to the inch in the warp, and 64 in the woof. The Egyptian priests were also partial to cotton dresses, which were supplied to them by the Government, as the Rosetta stone distinctly mentions. Cotton and
wool were worn by the upper classes of society ; wool alone by the poorest. The garments of the priests and higher ranks among the Hebrews were of fine linen ; the references to silk in the English version of the Bible being an undoubted mistrans lation. There is no evidence of silk having been known to the Hebrews or Assyrians.
In the representations of the Egyptian loom at Thebes and elsewhere, the loom is vertical, and the weaver is seen throwing the weft through the warp by means of a rod, at the end of which there is a hook, probably for drawing back the ablittle with the weft. The Indian loom is very like this in principle, only horizontal; donbtlesa the same which has been in use from time immemorial, and which probably passed 'through Persia or some other channel at an early period into E. urope. Medimval drawings, such as that copied by Montfancon from the MS. Virgil of the Vatican, commonly assigned to the 4th century, show a modification of this pristine model. The Chinese silk loom, however, presents a striking contrast to these simple machines in point of inventiveness and complexity, coming near the best specimens of the modern hand-loom. Aristotle gives the earliest historical notice of silk, which in all pro bability spread from China westwards, and came into extensive use concurrently with the growth of wealth and luxury in Greece and Rome.
The fabrics woven in India now are probably not much altered in chamcter from what they were in the time of Menu ; and the looms, simple and apparentlyrude in construction, are,under their wonderful power of manipulation and unwearymg patience, capable of producing some of the finest, most elegant, and most costly fabrics in the world. The frame of the loom in Bengal is almost on the ground, and the weavers, sitting with their feet hanging down in a hole cut in the earth, carry on their work. A loom usually forms part of a Bnrman's household furniture, and it is worked by the women. The cloths are rough but strong, and some of the silk goods are of considerable value. Waistcoats for men, petticoats for women, and coverlets are usually woven.