Chamba Rumal

The tradition & historical record

The Chamba Rumal or Chamba handkerchief is an embroidered handicraft that was once promoted under the patronage of the former rulers of Chamba kingdom. It is a common gift during marriages with detailed patterns in bright colour schemes. This product has been registered for protection under the Geographical Indication of the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement. On 22 January 2007, it was listed as "Chamba Rumal" under the GI Act 1999 of the Government of India with registration confirmed by the Controller General of Patents Designs and Trademarks under Classes 24 as Textile and Textile Goods. ¹

The earliest reported form of the Chamba Rumal was made by Bebe Nanaki, sister of Guru Nanak, in the 16th century, and is preserved in the Gurudwara at Hoshiarpur. The Victoria Albert Museum, London has a rumal that was gifted to the British in 1883 by Raja Gopal Singh. It has an embroidered scene of the Kurukshetra War from the epic Mahabharta. From the 17th century the women of the erstwhile princely state of Chamba (now part of Himachal Pradesh), including members of the royal family, indulged in embroidery of the rumals or handkerchiefs as a part of a marriage gifts or dowry to their daughters. The handkerchiefs were made in geometrical shapes of square and rectangle using very fine hand made silk which was obtained from the Punjab or muslin cloth, a product of Bengal. Women created highly ornamental patterns using untwined thread made of silk produced in Sialkot (in Pakistan), Amritsar and Ludhiana. The embroidery technique adopted, called the dohara tanka or double satin stitch, created distinct identical patterns on both faces of the fabric, which were attractive when viewed even from distance of 10 ft and more. The dohara tanka method is a heritage of Kashmir, which was adopted in Basohli and Chamba, but was improved upon by adopting themes from the special Mughal art of Chamba miniature paintings; this art form flourished during the 18th and 19th centuries. Following the downfall of the Mughal Empire many expert artists of this craft migrated to the hill region of Himachal Pradesh. Raja Umed Singh of Chamba (1748–68) patronized the artists. ¹

Known as a "needle wonder" Chamba Rumal is now made in square and rectangular shapes. The materials used still consist of muslin, malmal, khaddar (a coarse fabric), fine charcoal or brush, and silk threads without knots. Using a double satin stitch for the embroidery, both faces of the cloth are concurrently stitched by a forward and backward technique to maintain uniformity of design on both faces of the rumal. After completing the embroidery, the fabric is stitched with a border of about 2 to 4 inches on all sides. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Chamba Rumal”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Chamba Rumal is handkerchief, an embroidered handicraft, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation. ²