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Dive into the crafts that define each corner of India.

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Adilabad Dokra Metalwork

Adilabad, Telangana

Adilabad dhokra is unglazed brass sculpture made by the Woj (Ojha) community of the old Adilabad district in northern Telangana. The pieces are ritual and everyday objects turned into art: Hindu and tribal deities, humped bulls, elephants, peacocks, tortoises, dancing figures, oil lamps, grain measures and neck ornaments. Every surface carries a fine ribbed texture left by the coils of wax thread used to build the model, and because each clay mould is broken open to release its casting, no two pieces are ever identical. The brass has a soft golden colour and is usually left with the marks of filing and the casting channels only lightly cleaned away, so the object still shows how it was made.

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Alappuzha Coir Craft

Alappuzha, Kerala

Alappuzha, long the capital of India's coir industry, turns the fibrous husk of the coconut into rope, matting, rugs, carpets, mattresses and geo-textiles. Products range from plain bristle and fibre door mats to jacquard-patterned corridor mattings, hand-tufted and hand-knotted pile carpets, and engineered coir netting used to hold soil on slopes and riverbanks. The town's grid of canals and its rows of tall spinning and warehouse sheds grew up entirely around the trade, and 'Alleppey' remains a recognised quality mark in the world floor-covering market.

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Arani Silk Weaving

Arani, Tamil Nadu

Arani, in Tiruvannamalai district of Tamil Nadu, is a large silk-weaving town whose sarees are lighter and less costly than those of nearby Kanchipuram while sharing the same design vocabulary of temple-tower borders, checks, self-stripes and small buttas. The typical Arani saree pairs a plain or lightly patterned body with a boldly contrasting pallu and a zari border, and the town is credited with popularising the 'contrast pallu' saree now sold across the South. Its niche has always been value — a genuine mulberry-silk saree at a price ordinary households can afford.

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Aranmula Kannadi (Metal Mirror) Craft

Aranmula, Kerala

The Aranmula kannadi is a mirror cast from a polished metal alloy rather than silvered glass. Because the reflecting layer is the front surface of the metal itself, the image has no secondary reflection, no parallax and no ghosting — the viewer sees a single, exact reflection. The mirrors are set in ornate cast-brass frames, made in sizes from a keychain trinket to a full-length stand, and are considered auspicious in Kerala: they form part of the ashtamangalyam, the eight lucky objects of ceremony, and are given at weddings and used in temple ritual. The exact composition of the alloy is a closely guarded family secret.

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Balaramapuram Handloom Weaving

Balaramapuram, Kerala

Balaramapuram, near Thiruvananthapuram, is the traditional source of Kerala's kasavu cloth — fine unbleached cotton woven with a plain body and a border and pallu of gold zari. The signature products are the two-piece set-mundu worn by women, the single mundu worn by men, and the kasavu saree, all worn at Onam, weddings and temple visits. The cluster is known for very fine, even weaving, neat selvedges and, in the best pieces, real gold- or silver-gilt zari that gives the border its weight and glow.

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Bengaluru Sandalwood & Handloom Craft

Bengaluru, Karnataka

Bengaluru and the surrounding districts of southern Karnataka bring together two prestige crafts. Sandalwood carvers, largely of the Gudigar community, cut deities, boxes, elephants, pierced screens and layered relief panels in the pale, close-grained, aromatic wood, exploiting its fine grain for deep undercutting and lattice work. Bengaluru is also a hub for the weaving, dyeing, throwing and trade of silk in the Mysore tradition — crepe and satin sarees, dress fabric and furnishing — and the state's craft institutions, silk marketing bodies and emporia are concentrated in the city.

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Bhavani Jamakkalam Weaving

Bhavani, Tamil Nadu

Bhavani, at the meeting of the Kaveri and Bhavani rivers in Erode district of Tamil Nadu, is known for the jamakkalam — a thick, hard-wearing cotton carpet or spread woven in strong colours and broad stripes or checks. It is spread on the floor for sitting, sleeping, prayer and ceremonial gatherings, and was a standard item of dowry and temple use across the Kongu region. Modern production also includes bedspreads, yoga mats, bags and jacquard-figured pieces.

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Bidriware Metal Inlay

Bidar, Karnataka

Bidriware is a metal craft of Bidar in northern Karnataka in which objects cast from a zinc-rich alloy are engraved, inlaid with silver — occasionally brass or gold — wire and sheet, and then chemically blackened so that the ground turns a deep, permanent, velvety black while the inlaid metal stays brilliant. The classic forms are the huqqa (hookah) base, the paandaan and surahi, along with boxes, bowls, trays, vases, buttons, cufflinks and jewellery. Patterns are Persianate: poppy and iris sprays, vine scrolls, stars, and the asharfi-ki-booti coin flower. The contrast of silver on dense black, unlike any other Indian metalwork, is the craft's whole identity.

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Bobbili Veena Craft

Bobbili, Andhra Pradesh

Bobbili in Vizianagaram district, Andhra Pradesh, is famous for making the Saraswati veena, the large fretted lute of Carnatic music. The Bobbili speciality is the ekanda veena, in which the rounded resonator bowl, the long neck and much of the body are carved from a single block of jackfruit wood rather than assembled from separate parts, which players prize for its even, resonant tone. The instrument is finished with a carved yali or swan head and often painted and lacquered with decorative motifs.

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Budithi Brass & Bell Metal Craft

Budithi, Andhra Pradesh

Budithi, a village in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh, makes brass and bell-metal household vessels — water pots (chembu), cooking pots, plates, tumblers, lamps, spice boxes and ritual ware — entirely by hammering sheet and cast blanks over anvils, so that the body of a pot is raised from a single piece of metal without any welded seam. The finished ware has a smooth, faceted surface from the hammering and a warm golden polish, and was traded across the northern Andhra and southern Odisha border districts.

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Channapatna Wooden Toys

Channapatna, Karnataka

Channapatna, a town between Bengaluru and Mysuru, is Karnataka's 'toy town', making lacquered wooden toys and objects — rattles, teethers, spinning tops, pull-along animals, cars, stacking rings, beads, keychains, pen stands and figures — turned on a lathe and coloured with lac tinted using natural and food-grade dyes. The rounded forms, glossy non-toxic finish and lack of any chemical varnish make the toys popular for small children, and the town has diversified into contemporary homeware and jewellery.

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Chendamangalam Handloom Weaving

Chendamangalam, Kerala

Chendamangalam, near North Paravur in Ernakulam district, is one of Kerala's three main kasavu-weaving centres, along with Balaramapuram and Kuthampully. Its looms produce the region's ceremonial white-and-gold cloth — single and double mundus, set-mundus and kasavu sarees — with a reputation for tight, even weaving and neat borders. The village became internationally known after the 2018 Kerala floods, when weavers and volunteers turned mud-stained cloth into thousands of small 'Chekutty' dolls to fund the looms' recovery.

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Chennai Handloom & Bronze Craft

Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Chennai and its hinterland in northern Tamil Nadu bring together two prestige crafts through the city's role as a commercial and cultural gateway. Sthapati families, especially at Swamimalai near Kumbakonam, cast solid bronze images of Hindu deities by the lost-wax method following the proportions of the Shilpa Shastras, continuing the tradition of the great Chola bronzes. Chennai itself is a major centre for the trade, finishing, display and export of Kanchipuram and other South Indian silk sarees, and the base for the state's craft institutions.

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Cheriyal Scroll Painting

Cheriyal, Telangana

Cheriyal scroll painting is the Telangana branch of the Deccan patachitra tradition, made in and around Cheriyal in Siddipet district. Long vertical cloth scrolls, sometimes forty to sixty feet, are painted in horizontal panels like a comic strip and unrolled section by section by balladeer communities as they sing the origin myths and epics of particular castes. The Nakashi painters also make lightweight sawdust-and-tamarind masks and figures. The work is on a dominant red ground, with flat natural and poster colours and bold black outlines.

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Dharmavaram Silk Weaving

Dharmavaram, Andhra Pradesh

Dharmavaram, in Sri Sathya Sai district of Andhra Pradesh, is a large silk-weaving centre — second in the South only to Kanchipuram — producing sarees and the paavadai (skirt) sets worn at weddings. Its sarees are distinguished by very broad gold zari borders joined to the body by the interlocked-weft (korvai) method and by pallus filled with brocade motifs of temples, peacocks, mangoes, swans and flowers. The silk is heavy and richly coloured, and a bridal border can be a hand's span deep on each side.

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Dharwad Cotton Handloom

Dharwad, Karnataka

The Dharwad and Hubballi region of northern Karnataka is a long-established cotton handloom belt, weaving sarees, dhotis, angavastrams, towels, bedsheets and the small figured blouse-cloth known as khana, which is worn with the Ilkal saree of the same region. The cloth is typically strong and plain or checked, with contrasting woven borders, and the belt is also a centre for khadi hand-spun cotton.

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Durgi Stone Carving

Durgi, Andhra Pradesh

Durgi, a village in Palnadu district of Andhra Pradesh, is a stone-carving centre working a locally quarried soft stone that is grey-green or white, easy to cut when freshly quarried but hardening on exposure. Craftsmen make images of Hindu deities, temple pillars, brackets and panels, lamps, pierced jaali screens, grinding stones, mortars and decorative objects. The stone's workability lets carvers cut fine detail and openwork that would break in a harder rock.

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Etikoppaka Lacquer Toys

Etikoppaka, Andhra Pradesh

Etikoppaka, a village on the Varaha river in Anakapalli district of Andhra Pradesh, makes lacquered wooden toys and objects — spinning tops, figures, animals, Dasavatara and wedding sets, boxes, bangles, candlestands and kitchen sets — turned on a lathe and coloured with lac tinted using natural dyes made from seeds, leaves, bark and roots. The forms are rounded and simple, the colours warm and slightly translucent, and the craft is a reference point for non-toxic, naturally dyed toys.

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Gadwal Saree Weaving

Gadwal, Telangana

The Gadwal saree, from the town of Gadwal in Jogulamba Gadwal district of Telangana, classically pairs a lightweight cotton body with a contrasting silk border and a richly woven silk-and-zari pallu, joined by the interlocked-weft (kumbham) technique. Because the body is cotton, a folded Gadwal is famously compact; a traditional one is said to fold small enough to pass through a finger ring or fit in a matchbox. It carries a Geographical Indication.

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Gollabhama Saree Weaving

Siddipet, Telangana

The Gollabhama saree, woven at Siddipet in Telangana, is a fine cotton saree whose body, border and pallu are scattered with the figure of a gollabhama — a milkmaid carrying a pot on her head — along with related motifs of dancers, birds, buttis and creepers, all worked in a contrasting supplementary weft that stands slightly proud of the ground. The milkmaid is always shown in profile with a pot balanced on her head, and weavers treat the motif almost as a signature.

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249+Craft TraditionsAcross India

30States & UTsRich in craft heritage

Country WideSkilled ArtisansKeeping traditions alive

Centuriesof HeritagePassed down generations

Every craft has a story. Every story begins with tradition.