Mandu Stone & Textile Craft
Baobab-shaded ruins, and the block-printed and woven cloth of a Malwa plateau town.
Mandu (Mandavgad), the hilltop fortress-city of the Malwa sultans in Madhya Pradesh, is best known for its ruined palaces, mosques and pavilions, and its craft identity is closely tied to the region around it. The plateau's sandstone and basalt support a building and carving tradition kept alive by restoration and local construction, and the surrounding Nimar–Malwa towns of Bagh and Maheshwar supply the block-printed and woven textiles that are sold at Mandu and identified with the area.
Craft at a Glance
Origin
Mandu, Madhya Pradesh
Also Known As
Mandu (Mandavgad) crafts, Nimar textile craft, Malwa plateau crafts
Craft Type
Stone work and block-printed and woven textiles
Practising Community
Stone masons of the plateau, and Khatri printers and weaver communities of the surrounding Nimar–Malwa towns
Materials
Local sandstone, basalt and imported marble for the stone work; and, for the textiles, handloom cotton and silk, teak blocks, and natural dyes such as alizarin, indigo, myrobalan and iron.
Known For
Local stone carving and building craft, and Bagh-style block prints and Maheshwari-influenced weaving of the Nimar–Malwa belt
Where It's Made
Mandu (Mandavgad) in Dhar district, and the nearby textile centres of Bagh and Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh
Time to Create
Days to weeks per printed or woven length; longer for stone
GI Status
Not GI-registered as a group; nearby Bagh Prints and Maheshwar Sarees are GI-tagged
Process Steps
Quarrying and dressing stone
Sandstone and basalt are quarried on the plateau and dressed to blocks with hammers and points.
Carving architectural elements
Brackets, jaali screens and simple ornament are cut with chisels for restoration and new building.
Priming the printing cloth
For Bagh-style prints, cotton is washed and soaked in myrobalan so mordants will bond.
Mordant block printing
Iron-black and alum-red mordant pastes are printed with carved teak blocks in the Bagh manner.
Dye boiling and river washing
The printed cloth is boiled with alizarin and washed in running water to develop and clear the colours.
Weaving the Maheshwari cloth
Light cotton-silk sarees with reversible borders are woven on pit looms in the nearby weaving towns.
Bringing crafts to Mandu
Printed and woven textiles are sold at Mandu as the crafts of the region alongside the stone monuments.
Technique Glossary
Jaali
A pierced stone lattice screen, used in Mandu's palaces and by its masons today.
Malwa Sultanate architecture
The Afghan-influenced stone building style of Mandu's fifteenth- and sixteenth-century monuments.
Bagh print
The GI-tagged natural-dye block print of Bagh village in the same district as Mandu.
Maheshwari weave
The light cotton-silk saree with reversible borders woven at Maheshwar on the Narmada nearby.
Mordant
A metallic salt printed so a dye later fixes permanently only where it was applied.
Dressing stone
Squaring and smoothing a quarried block with hammer and chisel before carving or laying it.
Baobab motif
The distinctive swollen-trunk tree of Mandu, used as a design motif on regional cloth.
A Craft Through Time
15th–16th century
The Malwa sultanate
Mandu flourishes as the Malwa capital, its craftsmen building its palaces, mosques and tombs.
17th century
Mughal Mandu
The Mughals hold and use the fort, and its architecture and gardens are maintained and added to.
18th century onward
Abandonment
The court leaves and the city empties; its craft economy shifts to the textile towns nearby.
20th century
Monument protection
Mandu's monuments are protected, and stone masons work on their restoration.
21st century
Heritage tourism
Visitors to Mandu buy Bagh prints and Maheshwari cloth as the crafts of the region.
Present
Stone and cloth
Restoration masonry on the plateau and the block-print and weaving traditions of the surrounding towns together form Mandu's craft identity.
Did You Know?
Mandu is dotted with baobab trees, an African species brought centuries ago along the trade routes, and their huge trunks appear as a motif in some of the region's printed and painted cloth sold to visitors.
Every craft has a story. Every story begins with tradition.