Bhadohi Hand-Knotted Carpets
The knotted-pile carpet belt of the Ganga plain, tied row by row on the loom.
Bhadohi, with the neighbouring districts of Mirzapur and Sant Ravidas Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, forms India's largest carpet-weaving cluster, sometimes called the 'Carpet City'. Craftsmen hand-knot woollen pile carpets in Persian, Kashmiri, Turkish and modern designs, along with hand-tufted rugs, hand-loomed flat weaves and jute and cotton dhurries, largely for export to Europe and North America. The belt supports a very large loom workforce spread across hundreds of villages.
Craft at a Glance
Origin
Bhadohi, Uttar Pradesh
Also Known As
Bhadohi-Mirzapur carpet, 'Carpet City' rugs, Indian hand-knotted carpet
Craft Type
Hand-knotted and hand-tufted wool carpets
Practising Community
Weaver households across the belt, both Hindu and Muslim, working on looms in home and shed workshops for exporters
Materials
Hand-spun and mill wool for the pile; cotton, and sometimes wool, for the warp and weft; silk for highlights in fine carpets; and natural or chrome dyes.
Known For
Persian-, Kashmiri- and contemporary-design hand-knotted carpets and flat-woven dhurries
Where It's Made
Bhadohi, Mirzapur, Sant Ravidas Nagar, Varanasi, Ghazipur and Allahabad districts, Uttar Pradesh
Time to Create
Weeks to many months, depending on size and knot density
GI Status
Handmade Carpet of Bhadohi is a registered GI of Uttar Pradesh
Process Steps
Designing and graphing
A carpet design is painted on graph paper (naksha), each square standing for one knot of a particular colour.
Dyeing the wool
Hanks of wool are dyed to the colours the design needs, matched carefully across dye lots.
Dressing the loom
Cotton or wool warp threads are wound tight on the loom frame at the density the carpet requires.
Knotting
Weavers tie coloured wool knots row by row from the graph or the called talim, working across the full width.
Wefting and beating
After each knot row, weft threads are passed and beaten down hard with a heavy comb to lock the knots.
Shearing
The woven carpet is sheared to an even pile height, sometimes several times for a smooth face.
Washing and stretching
The carpet is washed to soften the wool and set the colours, then stretched on a frame to pull it square.
Embossing and finishing
The pile is carved at different heights along the pattern lines, and the edges and ends are bound and finished.
Technique Glossary
Persian (senneh) knot
An asymmetric pile knot wrapped around one warp and passing behind the next, allowing fine curved detail.
Talim / naksha
The chanted code or the painted graph that tells the weaver the colour and count of each knot.
Knot density (KPSI)
Knots per square inch; the higher the count, the finer the detail and the longer the weaving.
Embossing
Trimming the pile at different heights along design edges to give a carved, sculptural relief.
Abrash
Subtle bands of colour variation across a field, from natural differences between dye lots of hand-spun wool.
Dhurrie
A flat-woven, pileless rug in cotton, wool or jute, also made across the belt.
Loom-tuft
A faster method where yarn is looped through a backing with a hand tool rather than knotted, for lower-cost rugs.
A Craft Through Time
16th–17th century
Knotting arrives
Carpet weaving takes root in the Bhadohi–Mirzapur belt, by tradition through Persian weavers.
19th century
Colonial export
British firms set up carpet production for European and American buyers, expanding the looms across the villages.
20th century
Carpet City
Bhadohi becomes the hub of India's carpet export industry, with its own expo, institutes and a very large workforce.
1990s
Labour certification
Schemes such as child-labour-free labelling are introduced to address concerns about the industry's workforce.
2010
Geographical Indication
Handmade Carpet of Bhadohi is registered as a GI of Uttar Pradesh.
Present
Export mainstay
The belt remains India's leading hand-knotted-carpet exporter, competing on design and craftsmanship with machine-made rugs.
Did You Know?
A finely knotted Bhadohi carpet can carry several hundred knots per square inch, so a single room-size rug contains many millions of individually tied knots.
Every craft has a story. Every story begins with tradition.