Mysore sericulture's historic leap forward 2)

Navaratna Rama Rao & M. Yonemura

2.  From silkworm experiment to commercial production

In 1925, co-operation between Rama Rao & Yonemura was demonstrated by the appearance of the first volume of A Handbook of Sericulture, Rearing of Silkworms on which they had both worked. By then Rama Rao must have accumulated considerable experience in the field, and he was also well known for his demonstrable skill with English.[1] It was certainly Yonemura who mainly contributed the technical and scientific information, Rama Rao who turned it into a fluent English text.

The future was now coming into focus, as experimental results of direct relevance were slotted into place. In the first place, results from the rearing section suggested that the limits of improvement of Pure Mysore were now in sight, or were at least compatible with thinking so. It was apparently impossible to shorten its rearing period or get a better ratio of silk to leaves fed. On the other hand, it was apparently essential for the cross breeding of cocoons for reeling: 'it will not do to have cocoons of a colour different from that of the Mysore cocoons, for that would lead to complications in reeling and marketing'. This was one of the drawbacks of the fixed races which so much effort had been put into creating. A solution would be a back-cross between them and Mysore, but the back-cross hybrid with the fixed races is far inferior to the hybrid that can be got in the first generation between a pure foreign race, and the Mysore race. This hybrid, if white races are employed, gives a cocoon which, while practically the same colour as the Mysore, is over 100 percent superior to it in reeling quality'. The rearing period was about four days shorter in its most expensive part, i.e. in the worms’ final voracious stage before spinning.’

To be able to make F₁ hybrids the basis for commercial rearing required the solving of technical problems. It had to be possible to rear pure univoltine or bivoltine races throughout the year in good quantities; it had to be possible to get them to emerge out of hibernation at will when required; and it had to be possible to regulate emergence so that Mysore and Foreign race moths would be available simultaneously to mate. All these problems had by now been solved. It had been shown that the Foreign pure races could be reared in Mysore conditions throughout the year and from year to year. It was thought that they retained their vigour over the years but suffered a 'seasonal enfeeblement'. This could be dealt with by rearing in the hot season in hill stations like the Bababudan Hills (Chamundiguddi) north of Chikmagalur, and 'renewing the stock occasionally by importing fresh seed from Japan'. In a result 'of great scientific interest', the artificial treatment of hibernating eggs to make them hatch had been achieved for the first time in India. And it had been found possible to control the time of emergence by regulating temperature even without refrigeration, which was not yet readily available.

Technically therefore, a new system of more productive rearing was in sight. It required also to be acceptable to rearers and for it to be possible to separate entirely the production of cocoons for seed from those for reeling. Fortunately, the greater productivity of the F₁ quickly dealt with the former’s problem: 'Raiyats, who were rather shy of the hybrids at first, soon recognised their value, and the demand for them rose so rapidly that the grainage at Channapatna, which devoted itself to this work, could never fully meet it'. There seemed to be no problem of getting the new cocoons reeled, and the organisation needed to produce the huge quantities required of pure races both for commercial use for seed and for grainage work was at least clear, if an inevitable challenge. The future pattern of the industry could be clearly envisioned:

‘There is undoubtedly a great future for this development, which is in strict accord with Japanese practice, and in a very few years it will be possible to solve the seed problem satisfactorily. Seed production will be specialised and will afford an occupation to educated sericulturists, pure races will be reared by selected breeders, F₁ seed will be prepared by controlled grainages [Government and aided private], and the rearers will produce larger harvests at less cost.’ (p.4/5)

In 1926/7, the Mysore grainage began in a small way to produce 'Cross-Breeds', joining Channapatna in the task. The following year it produced 23,000 to Channapatna's nearly 2 lakhs (200,000), and Kolar made a beginning too. The first cold storage plants were installed in the two main CB grainages, and experiments in their use in preserving moths and eggs began. They were to be used in production the following year. (p.2/3)

Rearing CB was not, however, proving quite as free of troubles as had been anticipated. One was the appearance of double or dupion cocoons, to the production of which the F₁ worms were prone whereas they were scarcely found with Pure Mysore. Experiments were going on to try to reduce the proportion produced, as well as to solve 'some of the difficulties which sericulturists came across in rearing cross breeds'. There was also still an interest in suitable breeding combinations for the different rearing seasons. A need to import fresh seed from Japan, which should be possible with the help of Yonemura, was also addressed. To start with, the eggs hatched on the way; they would have to try again. (1926/7:2/4/5) In the following year's report there is, however, no mention of the Japanese seed, but new Chinese races made their appearance. The CB experiments seem likewise to have disappeared, perhaps deemed successfully concluded, perhaps unnecessary. (p.5)

In 1929/30, Yonemura was appointed a correspondent in Japan for the Department, to keep up with developments there. The apparent result was that fresh seed of 19 Japanese and Korean races was obtained, presumably chiefly for experimental work. Now the cold stores were working, and the only trouble was the shortage of Mysore Race seed because of an outbreak of plague and shortage of rain in the seed areas. Perhaps under the impetus of this shortage, the observation that Mysore seed sometimes gave 'a large percentage' of hibernating layings was noted. They had been being destroyed, but new experiments now showed that they could be got to hatch and produce well. (p.2/3)

The Yonemura period had been momentous, the Mysore silk industry transformed. The complexity of the many other intertwining elements needing to achieve equal success would  however continue. They were to provide engaging challenges aplenty for further generations of enthusiasts and experts.

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[1] It should be noted that the official language of the Department was English from the beginning. Apart from the numerous reports and other work in English he published, his friend C. Rajagopalachari, popularly and affectionately remembered as Rajaji, ‘lawyer, independence activist, politician, writer and statesman’, credited Rama Rao with revising for him the text of his English version of the Ramayana : ‘My friend Sri Navaratna Rama Rao has thoroughly revised the English rendering and if it is found to be good reading it is due to his affectionate labour on this book. The faults such as may be noticed are entirely mine.’ Rajagopalachari, a native of Salem District,was amongst the most eminent of South Indians of the first half of the 20^th century: Premier of Madras in the 1930s; first and only Indian Governor-General after Independence; and Chief Minister of Madras in the 1950s. See Wikipedia entry for Navaratna Rama Rao, accessed 7.3.2013, and, for the multiple directions of  achievement and  eminence of C. Rajagopalachari, accessed 15.3.2013.

Mysore sericulture's historic leap forward (1)

Navaratna Rama Rao & M. Yonemura

1.  Yonemura and experimental breeding

M. Yonemura, a Japanese expert 'to whom goes the credit of evolving high-yielding varieties, modern methods of grainage and silk-farm works, and hybridisation between multivoltines and bivoltine silkworm races', was recruited in 1919 (19/20:6)[1]. The story is that Sirdar M. Kantaraj Urs, a member of the Mysore royal family, acting Dewan in place of Visvesvaraya in 1918 and taking over the following year, had gone on a tour of eastern countries which had taken him to Japan. There he had been so impressed by the progress being made in sericulture that he looked for a capable young expert and arranged for him to come to Mysore. There had already at the time been two staff hired to further the work in sericulture, H.S. Govinda Rao in 1917 and Shamsuddin Khan in 1919. Shamsuddin Khan himself describes the early recruits, without naming them, as Natural Science graduates, but it appears that he himself had a BA and it is not clear that Govinda Rao had any degree at all. They seem not to have been recruited specifically for research but they now were put to assisting Yonemura (Shamsuddin Khan 1965:11). He was a practical man who would judge the quality of the cocoons he was producing by reeling them himself. He and Rama Rao got on well together. Yonemura would visit his house and bring Japanese toys for his children (Madhava Rao, Mysore, 9.9.92). His services were initially extended for two years, with an option for him of having a third, and then by the three years.

In 1920 he had returned briefly to Japan. A Japanese operative had been sanctioned and he found and recruited the Lady Expert, E. Sato, to develop reeling. When he returned at the end of the year he brought back with him ten different races, three Japanese and three Chinese univoltines and one Chinese and three Japanese bivoltines. He was also already rearing a French variety as well as the Mysore race at the Institute in Mysore. There were therefore twelve pure races and a process of cross-breeding, rearing and selection began. He was also experimenting to find the minimum time required for fertilising the eggs during copulation. And he travelled around inspecting rearings. (1920/21:1,3,6)

In 1922/3, Govinda Rao returned from his course in Japan. He was put to assisting Yonemura in Mysore and extending the rearing work to Channapatna. The policy at this stage is very clearly stated: ‘The experiments aim at securing fixed races which while retaining all the best qualities of the Mysore silk worm, should produce a larger quantity of silk and arrive at maturity in a shorter time.’ Already, Rama Rao claimed, a 50-100 per cent improvement in silk yield had been achieved 'in some cases', and 'the time taken to reach maturity has been shortened by quite a week’. They were also experimenting with races for the different seasons of the year, in particular for the hot summer season and for the rains. 'The importance of this work can hardly be exaggerated.' (p. 2) Yonemura himself reported in detail on the year's work and his account gives a valuable impression of the complexity of the evidence provided by breeding and rearing as to the appropriate choices for the future. The results were clearly exciting. Various breeds had been fixed and were doing well: a Mysore-Chinese cross for instance matured in three days less than the Pure Mysore and showed an improvement of 50 to 90 per cent in the weight of silk and 10 to 40 per cent in the length of filament (p.3).

Some conspicuous successes were also scored in field trials. In the June-August rearing of 1922, this fixed breed, now called 'M₂D (white)', was tried in Kunigal. 28 kgs per 100 layings were obtained in 24 days, 'with almost no sort of trouble'. Out of this both pure and F₁ hybrid with Mysore were prepared for distribution. For the August-September rearing, this same material was distributed in Channapatna and was deemed to have done better still: 'this season of the year is very suitable for the rearing of any variety of silk worms, especially for the fixed breeds, and as a consequence the development of the worms was quite marvellous and they spun unexpectedly large cocoons'. By comparison with the fixed breeds, the F₁ seems to have done less well. Overall they got 23 kgs per 100 layings, but what was more impressive was that, out of the 200 fixed race and 300 F₁ provided to a new but obviously very large-scale rearer who was just starting his probably well supervised business in Chamarajanagar, 470 layings hatched in one morning and gave 364 lbs of cocoons, 35 kgs per 100, 'a crop which can never be got with the Mysore race, never mind how expert the rearer, or how favourable the conditions'. They had taken 27 or 28 days, using 4,700 lbs of leaves, rather over 2 tonnes. The experience gave a great stimulus to rearing in the area and have had a marked effect on the development of the industry’. (p.4/5)

For the fifth rearing of the official year, in January-March 1923, they repeated the old set and added one new. F₁ hybrids were coming to the fore. They distributed more than 3000 layings of these and of M₂D (white), mainly this time in Chamarajanagar, but also some in Devanahalli and Channapatna. The hybrid did well in all cases in Chamarajanagar and in Devanahalli but not so well in Channapatna. This success was even more conspicuous in the following, overlapping rearing between February and April. High temperature and humidity led them not to distribute the fixed breeds but to concentrate on the F₁, believing that it could yield better crops despite the unfavourable season. It was therefore reared in the Farm as well as by a few farmers. In the Farm, from 23 to 31 kgs were obtained, and private rearers did well too. As a whole the crop showed a gain of 3-4 days in rearing time, 44% in cocoon weight, 70% in shell proportion, 43-50% in silk, and 34-40% in length. At last Yonemura had a sense of really having discovered something. He writes, in the first person for the first time in his own report from which most of the above detail is taken, 'Considering from the above results I prepared more than 1,000 layings of hybrid between Mysore and the fixed breed and distributed them to the raiyats of Nanjangud, Yelandur, Agara, etc.' In fact he was now using one new fixed breed and five different F₁ hybrids of Mysore and a fixed breed. The results were good but are not reported in detail here (pp.3-7). This was now in the next reporting year, 1923/4, and Yonemura was apparently at the end of his time (p.6/7).

In that year no general report seems to have been published: there was only ‘A brief report of work done in the reeling section at Mysore’. K. Shamsuddin Khan had taken over as ‘Officer in Charge of the Office of the Silk Expert in Mysore’. Though the focus seemed to have firmly shifted onto the hybrids and they were rearing fourteen, besides pure and fixed races, and reporting their performance in the different seasons, there was no reflection on the wider significance of what might be achieved for the industry. A more specialised and enclosed or ‘scientific’ ethos was perhaps taking over as far as experimentation was concerned, with the raiyats and their rearings no longer in evidence. The ‘tentative conclusions’ reached were:

1. Univoltines show a tendency towards multivoltinism but temperature seems to retard this change.

            2. In hybrid races multivoltinism is the character which takes longest to fix.

3. Different origins seem to impart different fitnesses to environmental factors: the  Chinese withstand humidity, the             Japanese low temperatures, the European dryness.

4. The limit of improvement to Pure Mysore has not been reached, and this should  therefore be taken up.

But amongst elaborate tables of treatments and results is to be found the comparison which in retrospect is historic. It is between Pure Mysore and F₁ Mysore x Nichi 106 white (Japanese):

                                                                        Silk %          Filament length (m)    Denier                       

                        Pure Mysore     13.4-16.0           260-393   1.35-2.1

                        The hybrid         14.0-18.2           325-436   1.38-2.17

                                                                                    (1923/4:3-7)

The next step from experiment to introducing the products of experiment into production had already been precipitated by a seed crisis the previous year. Climatic conditions in the commercial seed areas had been disastrous and lack of supply endangered the industry. In these circumstances emergency measures were required. The Department organised a Seed Campaign and made available ‘not less than 6 million excellent seed cocoons through selected rearers at Kunigal, Bidadi, Mylapatna and elsewhere. Even seed of new races and hybrids selected by Yonemura was included. The Department had, it was claimed ‘prevented a bad season of unsuccessful rearings and wasted mulberry leaves’. (1922/3:1) It was doubtless a hectic prelude to the excitements of the following year.

The future was visible and the need to develop aided grainages in order to popularise the more productive possibilities was seen. In 1924/5 however, 88% of the output of Department grainages was still the Pure Mysore. The rest was made up of new races and hybrids, i.e. F_1, mostly produced at Channapatna. (p.2)

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[1] The Annual Reports were mostly the work of Rama Rao as Superintendent of Sericulture. First references to them are shown with the official year of the Report followed by the relevant page/s; subsequent references to the same year show only the page/s, e,g. (p.2).

The Patunulkarans

Silk weavers, immigration and textiles from the 5^th century AD

The most striking ancient historical evidence relating to silk in South India so far noted refers to the weavers of silk rather than to the raw material they used or even their products. It is a Sanskrit eulogy in the poetic style of the period, composed by poet Vatsabhatti for a guild of silk weavers and inscribed on a black stone slab built into the wall of a river ghat in the ancient city of Mandasor in Madhya Pradesh. It praises the great Kumaragupta the First, who reigned from AD 415 to 455, Emperor of the Gupta Empire of northern India, and the local king Bandhuvarman who is described as Governor of the city. Rulers, the city and the guild itself are extensively eulogised in picturesque terms.[1]

The work gave priority to immigrants amongst the glories of the city. At an earlier period, it was claimed, a band of migrants had moved to Dasápur as it was then called, from a district of what is now Gujarat to the west, either Lâta or, as it later came to be thought, Saurashtra in the peninsula of Kathiawad.

Line 3, Verses 4-5. 

From the district of Lāta, which is pleasing with choice trees that are bowed down by the weight of (their) flowers, and with temples and assembly-halls pleasure gardens, (and) the mountains of which are covered over with vegetation. To (this) city of Dasápura there came, full of respect – first in thought and afterwards (in person) in a band together with their children and kinsmen – men who were renowned in the world for (skill in their) craft (of silk-weaving), and who, being manifestly attracted by the virtues of the kings of the country, gave no thoughts to the continuous discomforts of the journey and its accomplishment.

The city was beautiful; its superiority over Lāta was clearly being claimed. It was (Verse 13)

embraced by two charming rivers with tremulous greed, as if it were the body of (the god) Smara (embraced) in secrecy by (his wives) Prīti and Rati, possessed of heaving breasts. Like the sky with the brilliant multitudes of planets, it shines with Brāhmans endowed with truth, patience, self-control, tranquillity, religious vows, purity, fortitude, private study, good conduct, refinement, and steadfastness, (and) abounding in learning and penances, and free from the excitement of surprise.

The members of this band of immigrants were Pattavāyakas, the name equivalent in Sanskrit to Patnulkāran or Pattunūlkāran – ‘Silk thread people’ – by which they would later be known.

(Verse 15.)  ‘So coming together, (and) day by day having their friendship augmented, making contacts and being gratified and treated honourably like sons by the kings,  they happily lived in the city’. (Verse 16.) Some became ‘well acquainted with the science of archery’, others with storytelling or ‘true religion’. (Verse 17.) ‘Some excelled in their own business (of silk-weaving)’, others in astrology, (and) even fighting.’

Here it is clear that they were lauding their own success, spectacularly displayed by their building of a temple.

(Verse 29.)  While he, the noble Bandhuvarman, the best of kings, the strong-shouldered one, was governing the city of Dasápura, which had been brought to a state of great prosperity - a noble and unequalled temple of the bright-rayed (Sun), was caused to be built by the silk-cloth weavers, as a guild, with the stores of wealth acquired (by the exercise of their) craft; (Verse 30.) a temple which, having broad and lofty spires, (and) resembling a mountain, (and) white as the mass of the rays of the risen moon, shines, charming to the eye, having the similarity of (being) the lovely crest-jewel, fixed (in its proper place), of (this) city of the West. ... (Verse 33.) In the season when massive breasts of women are most enjoyable or when the low thunder of the clouds in most welcome, on the auspicious thirteenth day of the bright fortnight of the month Sahasya, this temple was consecrated with the ceremony of auspicious benediction.

The date derived from details in the text is AD 437/38.

Similarly, the text gives thirty six years later, described as ‘a long time under other kings’, when part of the temple had ‘fallen into disrepair’ according to one version, or one part of it had been ‘shattered’ according to another, ‘now, in order to increase their own fame, the whole of this most noble house of the Sun [had] been repaired again by the munificent corporation’.[2]  It was apparently reconsecrated on the ‘second lunar day of the bright fortnight of the month Tapasya’, this being the event occasioning the writing of the poetic eulogy by Vatsabhatti, inscribed on the slab in Mandasor.

Subsequently, as seen in circumstantial evidence and preserved tradition, further migration took place. A narrative of this was put forward in the report of the Madras Census of 1901, quoted at length in Thurston & Rangachari (1909: 160 fol.) Patnūlkārans are there described as ‘a caste of foreign weavers found in all the Tamil districts, but mainly in Madura town, who speak Patnūli or Khatri, a dialect of Gujarāti, and came originally from Gujarāt’. They had ‘lately taken to calling themselves Saurāshtras’ after the ‘country from which they came’ and in the Census schedules they had frequently entered themselves as Saurāshtra Brāhmans. Contention as to their proper caste status had been going on for at least the previous century.

According to an account from W. Francis’ Madura Gazetteer of 1906, Mandasaur was destroyed by Muslim invaders and the Patnūlkārans migrated south to Dēvagiri, capital of the Yādavas.[3] This would have probably been during the 13^th century. There, according to one story from the North Arcot District Manual, they lived in twelve streets ‘entirely peopled by them’. For some reason they did not know, ‘the residents of one of these streets were excommunicated by the rest of the caste and expelled’. It was said to be when they were there they also lost their assured Brahman status. They had been ‘bound to produce a certain number of silken cloths at each Dīpāvali feast in Dēvagiri for the goddess Lakshmi. One year their supply fell short, and they were cursed by the goddess, who decreed that they should no longer be regarded as Brāhmans. They, however, still claim to be such, and follow the customs of that caste, though they refuse to eat with them’[4]

For whatever reasons, it is apparent that at least some of them moved south again, now into Vijayanagar, the Telugu/Kannada-speaking Empire which was able to maintain a measure of Hindu dominance across most of southern India from its official foundation in 1336 to its final defeat by combined Muslim powers in 1565. Within the rich and lavish cultural context that it created during this long period, there would have been ample demand for the high quality fabrics that appear to have remained the hereditary speciality of the Patnūlkārans over the centuries.

In Mysore soon after the fall of Seringapatam to the East India Company and its allies in 1799, it was silk-weavers known there as Patvēgāras[5] who attracted the close attention of the Scott, Francis Buchanan, on a great journey of enquiry from Madras across Mysore to the Malabar coast in the west.[6] He placed these silk weavers as heading the ranks of weaver castes in South India, working mainly with cotton, but also with silk alone and for fabrics of fine cotton with silk borders.

Buchanan attends also to the array of other weavers in the region. They usually worked in small units of master weaver and from two to five of his ‘servants’, and would carry out most of the weaving and dyeing work themselves. The servants were paid on a piecework basis, with slightly higher rates for those weaving combinations of silk and cotton than for plain silk. He observed that it was not usual for any weavers except Whalliaru [Holeyas] to work part time in agriculture, though ‘many persons of castes that ought to be weavers, are in fact farmers’. As for the raw silk they used, it was all imported by Bangalore merchants (loc.cit.). The most costly by far was the Chinese, white and yellow, with the former rather more so than the latter. Rajanagari silk, in both colours and presumably from Bengal, was available at about 2/3rds the price, and muga wild silk at about a quarter (op.cit.: 196).

The Patvēgāras mainly made cloth of a very rich and strong fabric for nine named kinds of garment. Buchanan explains that Hindus rarely wore cut and stitched clothes, instead obtaining pieces of fabric woven to the appropriate size for wrapping round parts of the body as required. These they made in children’s sizes as well as for adults, male as well as female. The customers would necessarily have been relatively wealthy. The first five garments he lists used similarly patterned silks, differentiated by the colours used and ‘the different figures woven in the cloth.’ ‘If any person chooses to commission them, whatever parts of the pattern he likes may be wrought in gold thread; but, as this greatly enhances the value, such cloths are never wrought except when commissioned’. The sixth kind he lists is called shalnama, a shawl for wrapping round head and shoulders of men, with smaller ones again for children. These were also strong and rich but distinguished by the use of figures like those on Kashmiri shawls (Buchanan 1807: 208). A number of other luxurious lines were also noted, including sada putayshina, a thin white muslin with silk borders ‘either plain or dotted in the loom with silk or cotton thread’ and often with gold and silver ornament. Buchanan pronounces it ‘an elegant manufacture’. Other variants are described too: coloured striped muslin with silk borders and another with the muslin green, perhaps a difficult colour to achieve. The latter was also made by Devangas, widespread competitors in the high quality market, whose version of this was, Buchanan states, of finer quality. Other weavers, apparently less numerous, called Cuttery, who claimed to be Kshatriyas by caste, produced exactly the same items as the Patvēgāras. 

There was therefore a class of producers of luxury bespoke silk goods, these to be sold at up to four times the best of three recognised qualities of the same items often produced for public sale. Buchanan, himself from an aristocratic family background, appreciated the ‘capability of the Bangalore weavers to make rich, very fine and elegant cloth of every kind that may be in demand’. The manufacturers told him, with a little exaggeration perhaps, that all the demand for these goods was in ‘the country formerly belonging to Tippoo’. They were accustomed to working for the court at Seringapatam, and it struck him that they must now, ‘labour under great disadvantages: for it never can be expected that the court of Mysore should equal that of Seringapatam’, recently destroyed, ‘nor will the English officers ever demand the native goods so much as the Musselmen Sirdars did’ (op.cit.:221).

By the start of the nineteenth century, as this narrative shows, the Patnūlkārans or Patvēgāras had spread into the domains of Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan, as well as into the Presidency of Madras. In Madurai within the Presidency, it was noted  at the beginning of the 20^th century that most Patnūlkārans could still speak Telugu and that their own Patnūli language included many Kannada and Telugu words.[7] From North Arcot comes also a list of the places they had settled: Tirupati, Arni and Vellore, and further south again to Trichinopoly, Tanjavur, Madurai ‘and other large towns where they carried on their trade of silk-weaving’.

Notes on other matters of interest come from the Mysore Census Report of 1891. The Patnūlkārans then made ‘a fine stuff called katni[8], which no other weavers [were] said to be able to prepare’. It was ‘largely used by Mussalmans for trousers and lungas (gowns)’. They also said that about twenty-five of their families living in Tanjavur district were taken by Hyder Ali when returning from his campaigns in the Carnatic against Madras, to his capital, Srirangapatna. There they were placed in his artisan settlement at Ganjam nearby, and exempted from ‘certain taxes’ ‘to encourage silk and velvet weaving’. ‘The industry flourished till the fall of Srirangapatna [in 1799], when most of the class fled from the country, only a few having survived those troublous times’.  By 1891 there were only 254 Patnūlkārans registered in the Mysore Census, and they were making carpets in Bangalore (Thurston & Rangachari 1909: 160-177 facing).

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[1] The text here was extracted mainly from the translation as published by John F. Fleet 1888, accessed online, 20.04.2012, in ‘Mandasaur – Jatland Wiki’, a compilation by Laxman Burdak. The presence of mistakes of translation as well as sources for correction are noted. Another version, less filled out and probably less imaginative, is available at his op.cit.: 22-32. See also Bühler 1973, a reprint of the original translation from his German original of 1913. Successive translations copy and modify in varying degree.

[2] Another translation offers ‘magnanimous guild’ (Verse 36/37).

[3] It would later, in the era of Muslim dominance in the 14^th century, become Daulātabād, the Tagluq capital to which an attempt to remove the inhabitants of Delhi was made. Its fort near Aurangabad remains the most spectacular in the state of Maharashtra and a major tourist destination.

[4] See Ramaswamy 1985: 160-61, for an interesting case of contested claim to Brahmin status. For Patnūlkārans, see also Thurston & Rangachari 1909: 160-177 facing.

[5] Or Pattuegars in Buchanan’s transliteration, the Kannada equivalent of the caste name, Patnūlkāran. See Thurston & Rangachari 1909: 187/88.

[6] The 3 volumes of his invaluable reports on the detailed enquiries he made into the country and its inhabitants on A journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar were published in London in 1807.

[7] The Telugu-speaking Devanga weavers, dominant caste of Kollegal town, a sericultural centre on the edge of Karnataka but once in the Coimbatore District of the Madras Presidency, have a comparable history. They were encountered as active across the silk trades in the 1970s. (Charsley 1980: 1755-64).

[8] Katni: probably the more widely recognized ‘patni, Anglo-Indian ‘putney’ (Hobson-Jobson 1886), referring to silk fabric of high quality such as the commissioned items noted above.