Nestled in a valley at the foothills of the Himalayas, the Kashmir region was once called the paradise of India.  The river Jhelum and its tributaries made it a fertile land where flowers, fruit trees, cypresses and cedars abounded.  It was there, in the fifteenth century, that the Sultan Zayn al-Abidin is said to have summoned a highly skilled Turkistan weaver named Naghz Beg to build a loom for weaving shawls (1). 

The weaving of shawls flourished and the region's economy and fame became linked to its textile production.  Kashmir shawls were highly valued for both their aesthetics and intricate structure.  Shawls were woven in a technique named espoliné or twill-tapestry.  This technique is similar to European tapestries in that the decoration is formed by weft threads that interlock where the color changes but, unlike European tapestry, the espoliné technique is a twill weave.  This versatile technique can reproduce any design in a wide variety of colors.  It is also extremely time-consuming: two weavers could take 18 months to produce an average shawl and 3 years for a top-quality one (2).

In its country of origin, the shawl was a garment made and worn mostly by men.  Most historians believe their use was limited to the male gender, but one traveler, Francois Bernier, noted in 1664 that "both men and women, Muslim and Hindu alike wore them over their heads or draped over the left shoulder like a cloak in the winter"(3). Children helped in shawl production and women prepared the warp threads, but all other steps in the process were be done by men.  Warpers set on the loom the 2000 to 3000 longitudinal threads necessary for a 47" wide shawl.  Naqqash, or designers, drew the patterns.  Tarah-Guru, or "color-caller", read the design from the bottom up and indicated the number of warp threads under which the bobbin of weft had to pass.  Finally, the Talim-guru, or pattern master, wrote these instructions down using the "talim", or shawl alphabet.  These instructions were kept in front of the two to three weavers to guide them as they worked side by side at the same loom.
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(1)Monique Levi-Strauss, The Cashmere Shawl  (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 1988), 14.
(2)Valerie Reilly, The Paisley Pattern  (Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1987), 15.
(3)Monique Levi-Strauss, 14.