Cloth that remembers the knot
What makes these crafts special here is not their age but their life. Women in Jodhpur and Jaipur wear them every day and for every occasion, from a wedding to a temple visit, and a whole calendar of colours tells you who is wearing what, and why.
Bandhani: or bandhej, from bandhna, to tie. A dyer pinches up a point of cloth, often no bigger than a grain of rice, and binds it tightly with thread.
Thousands of times: she repeats this across a length of fabric, following a marked pattern. After dyeing and untying, every knot leaves a small ring or dot of the original colour.
- Bandhani
- Dots made by tying tiny knots before dyeing
- Leheriya
- Diagonal waves from rolled and tied cloth
- Mothra
- Leheriya tied both ways, a fine check
- Best places
- Jodhpur, Jaipur, Bikaner, the Thar villages
- Time needed
- A morning with a dyeing family
- Many colours: repeat with a second and third colour, tying new points each time, and you get the many-coloured odhnis, the long head-cloths worn across Rajasthan and Gujarat.
- Leheriya: from lehar, a wave. The dyer rolls fine, light cloth diagonally from corner to corner like a long rope, ties it at intervals and dips it. Unrolled, slanting bands of colour ripple like water.
- Mothra (also spelled mothda): fold and roll the cloth again from another corner, tie and dye, and the waves cross into a fine check.
- The right cloth: the best leheriya is made on thin cotton, voile, chiffon or silk, so the tight roll takes the dye cleanly.
- Very old: art historians see tie-dyed patterns in early Indian painting and sculpture, and resist-dyed cloth has been traded out of Gujarat and Rajasthan for centuries.
- Who does the work: mostly women at home, tying in their courtyards between household tasks, and dyeing families who take the tied cloth through its baths of colour.
- The dyeing families: in the old cities many dyers come from Rangrez families, the hereditary dyers, and from the Chhipa communities who also print cloth.
- Directly with them: we work with families like these, and our textile and craft trail is built around them.
How bandhani is made, knot by knot
Marking the design
First: the cloth is washed and laid flat.
- The pattern: printed in a fugitive colour that washes out later, with a carved wooden block or a pricked sheet through which colour is dabbed.
- The guide: the marks show the tier exactly where every knot must go.
- From memory: some old patterns are so familiar that experienced tiers work them without marks.
Tying the points
The tools: a fingernail often grown long for the purpose, or a small pointed ring worn on the finger, to lift each marked point.
One thread: she winds thread around the point several times and moves to the next without cutting it.
- Hours of work: a skilled woman ties steadily for hours, the cloth gathering into a bumpy mass in her lap.
- The finest pieces: have the smallest dots, and the most of them.
- Named by number: simple patterns are called by the points in each group, such as ekdali, a single dot, and chaubandi, four dots together.
Dyeing from light to dark
The rule: always from the lightest colour to the darkest.
- A typical piece: first yellow, then more points tied, then red, and finally a deep maroon or black for the ground.
- Between baths: the cloth is rinsed and dried in the sun.
- How the colours build: each new tying protects some colour beneath, so one odhni can carry dots of white, yellow, red and green on a dark field.
Sold still knotted
- Like tiny peaks: much good bandhani leaves the workshop still tied, and the buyer pulls it open at home as the dots pop out.
- The surest sign: a tied cloth is also the surest sign that a piece is genuine.
How leheriya gets its waves
The roll: the dyer takes one corner and rolls the cloth diagonally towards the opposite one, keeping it tight and even.
The ties: she folds the roll back on itself and binds it at intervals. Spacing decides the stripe width, and tightness decides how crisp the stripes are.
One colour: for single-colour waves, that is almost it: untie, rinse, dry, open.
- Cloth
- Thin, often a sari or five-metre turban length
- Stripe width
- Set by the spacing of the ties
- Most famous
- Panchranga, five colours
- Season
- The monsoon, Teej and Sawan
- In Jaipur
- The green Leheriya Gate, City Palace
- Many colours: the dyer works in stages, tying new bands or partly untying old ones between baths, always from light to dark.
- Panchranga: five colours, worn for festivals and weddings.
- Mothra: rolled from one corner, tied and dyed, then unrolled and rolled again from the other, so the stripes cross into small diamonds.
- The name: said to come from moth, a small lentil, because the undyed spaces are about that size.
- The cloth of the rains: leheriya belongs to Teej, the festival of married women in the monsoon, and to Sawan, the rainy month, when women wear green and pink and swing from trees hung with ropes.
- The Leheriya Gate: Jaipur's City Palace has a green Leheriya Gate in Pritam Niwas Chowk, standing for spring.
- Turbans: leheriya turbans were once worn at court in the rainy season, and men in Jodhpur and Jaipur still wear them for weddings and festivals.
- Read more: our journal on Leheriya explained has photographs of the main patterns, and our journal on the turbans of Rajasthan tells the wider story.
- Tie one yourself: our turban tying page explains how a leheriya safa is wound.
What the colours mean
Red, for marriage: a bride's chunri, a red bandhani odhni scattered with white or yellow dots, is one of the most important wedding gifts, often given by her mother's family.
Yellow, for a new mother: yellow with a red border or centre, called pila or peela in many families, is given after a birth and worn for the first outings and ceremonies.
- Red
- Marriage, the bride's chunri
- Yellow and red
- A new mother, pila or peela
- Saffron
- Rajput courage, kesariya
- Green and pink
- The monsoon, Teej and Sawan
- Dark grounds
- Older women, some widows
- Saffron, for courage: kesariya is the colour of Rajput courage and renunciation, worn in turbans for great occasions and long linked in song with warriors going to battle.
- Green, pink and yellow: leheriya colours of the monsoon, especially Teej and Sawan, when the land turns green after the summer.
- Panchranga: five colours together, festive and auspicious, worn at weddings and fairs.
- Darker grounds: maroon, dark blue or black with fewer dots are often worn by older women, and in some communities by widows.
- Indigo: deep and slightly uneven, often a sign of a natural dye.
- Natural or synthetic: most tie-dye today uses synthetic dyes, which are brighter and more consistent. A few workshops still use indigo, madder and other plant colours.
Where we arrange a tie-dye morning
- Bandhani
- Jodhpur, behind Sardar Market
- Leheriya
- Jaipur, Kishanpole and Johari Bazaar
- Everyday buys
- Bikaner, at kind prices
- Village textiles
- Barmer and Jaisalmer
- Across the border
- Bhuj and the Kutch villages
Jodhpur, behind Sardar Market
A great home of bandhani: Marwar, and the old city of Jodhpur is the best place to see it.
- The lanes: around the Clock Tower and Sardar Market, bolts of red, saffron and green bandhani hang from the shopfronts, and in side lanes women tie knots in courtyards and doorways.
- The morning: with a dyeing family, watching the cloth through its baths, then the bazaar with a guide who can tell good work at a glance.
Jaipur, Kishanpole and Johari Bazaar
The home of leheriya: Jaipur.
- Kishanpole Bazaar: running south from Choti Chaupar, good for tie-dyed fabrics.
- Johari Bazaar: fills with leheriya saris and turbans in the weeks before Teej.
- Your own scarf: in a dyer's workshop in the walled city you roll and tie your own leheriya, and can add the block printers of Bagru the same day.
Bikaner and the northern desert
- Bold colours: the bazaars of Bikaner sell bandhani and leheriya in the colours of the northern Thar, alongside camel-leather mojaris and silver.
- Best for: everyday wear rather than heirloom pieces, and the prices are kind.
The villages of the Thar
A world of textiles: around Barmer and Jaisalmer, tie-dye sits alongside embroidery, appliqué and printing.
- Cloth as identity: women of the herding and farming communities wear odhnis whose colours and patterns mark their community.
- Who for: less a lesson than an introduction, suited to travellers with time and real curiosity.
Kutch, across the border in Gujarat
Related, not the same: in Kutch the dots are often finer and the grounds deeper.
- The centre: Bhuj and its villages, where Khatri families have tied and dyed cloth for generations.
- Compare them: our Rajasthan and Kutch journey lets you see both.
A morning in a dyer's courtyard
Before and after: your host, usually the head of the family or a senior woman, shows you a finished piece and a tied one.
Your first knots: she puts a small marked square in your hands and shows you how to lift a point, wind the thread and move on without breaking it.
Respect: most guests tie a few dozen knots in half an hour, and gain a new respect for the women who tie thousands.
- Arrive
- After breakfast, as the baths heat
- Allow
- Three hours, with travel
- You make
- A tied square and a leheriya scarf
- Wear
- Old clothes and gloves
- Children
- Welcome, kept clear of hot baths
- The dyeing: choose a colour, watch it mixed, dip your tied cloth, then rinse it and hang it in the sun.
- Leheriya next: while it dries, roll a length of fine cotton diagonally, tie it with your host's help and dip it in a second colour.
- The opening: the magic moment. Your waves are never quite straight, and they are entirely yours.
- Over chai: the family talks about which patterns sell for weddings, the leheriya rush before Teej, how dyes have changed and how their children feel about carrying on. These conversations are the real point.
- To take home: the pieces you made and, if you wish, a length of their finest work bought directly from them.
- Stains: synthetic dyes stain skin for a day or two, which is why gloves are wise.
- After: pair it with an afternoon in the bazaar, to shop with your new eye.
Real or printed: how to tell
Look at the back: on real bandhani and leheriya the pattern goes right through the cloth and is almost as strong on the reverse. A print is usually much paler behind.
Look at the dots: hand-tied dots are slightly irregular, each a small ring with a soft, blurred edge, often with a tiny mark in the centre where the thread was. Printed dots are flat, sharp and identical.
- Feel the texture: opened bandhani keeps a slight puckering where each knot was, especially before the first wash. Pieces sold still knotted are almost always genuine.
- Check the waves: real leheriya stripes wander a little and bleed softly at their edges. Perfectly ruled stripes on heavy cloth are printed.
- Ask about the dye: a good shopkeeper will tell you honestly whether a piece is hand-tied, how many colours it went through and whether the dyes are natural or synthetic.
- Expect to pay more: a fine odhni with thousands of knots is days or weeks of a woman's labour, and should be paid for accordingly.
- Our shops: our shopping guide to Rajasthan explains how we choose them, and why our guides are never paid commission.
Wearing it, and caring for it at home
How to wear it
An odhni as a scarf: over a plain kurta or a simple dress, or across the shoulders on a cool palace terrace.
A leheriya sari: light enough for a hot afternoon, festive enough for a wedding.
- For men: leheriya and bandhani turbans and, more quietly, pocket squares and scarves.
- For a wedding: we help you choose a piece that suits the occasion and the family's customs.
- Tailoring: in Jaipur or Jodhpur a tailor can turn a length of fabric into a kurta or a jacket within a day or two.
Washing and storing
The first washes: on its own, in cold water with a mild soap, because some synthetic dyes still release colour and natural dyes almost always do.
- Don't wring: roll it in a towel and dry it in the shade, since strong sun fades the brightest reds and pinks.
- Silk and chiffon: best dry-cleaned by someone who knows Indian textiles.
- Storing: folded in cotton or muslin rather than plastic, and refolded now and then so the creases don't wear through.
Opening a knotted piece
Slowly: don't open it all at once on the hotel bed. Pull it gently, a section at a time, holding the cloth either side of the knots.
- A keepsake: some people keep one corner tied as a reminder of how it was made.
- Threads: keep the pulled threads away from children and pets.
- Wash first: the dye on freshly opened cloth can mark skin and pale fabrics.
Antique pieces
Old silk odhnis: from the early twentieth century, they turn up now and then in the antique shops of Jaipur and Jodhpur.
- Real or aged: some are genuine and beautiful, and some are newer pieces aged to look old.
- A second opinion: we can bring a trusted dealer to look with you, and explain how to export antique textiles if a piece is old enough for the rules to apply.
The tie-dye calendar
July and August: the bazaars are fullest of leheriya in the weeks before Teej, when women buy new saris and odhnis and the rains turn the state green.
Processions in Jaipur: both Teej and the spring festival of Gangaur end with the goddess carried from the City Palace through Tripolia Gate, and the women lining the route wear their finest leheriya.
- Leheriya peak
- July and August, before Teej
- Bandhani peak
- November to February, wedding season
- Best for a workshop
- October to March
- Hot months
- April to June, visit early
- Processions
- Teej and Gangaur, through Tripolia Gate
- In the monsoon: the best time to see the cloth worn as it is meant to be.
- The wedding season: roughly November to February is high season for bandhani, as brides' families shop for chunris and the best pieces appear in Jodhpur and Jaipur.
- The comfortable months: October to March, when the sun dries cloth quickly and the heat of the dye baths is welcome rather than punishing.
- April to June: workshops slow down in the middle of the day, so we visit early.
- The wider world of cloth: our Rajasthani dress and textiles guide explains it.
Fair pay, clean water and honest shopping
Paid directly: we pay the families who host you at a fair rate for their time, never through a showroom that takes a share. If you buy, the money goes to them.
No child labour: we don't take guests to workshops where children are tying instead of going to school.
- Open about water: we prefer workshops that are open about their dyes and where their water goes, because synthetic dye run-off is a real problem for some old dyeing towns.
- Photographs: welcome in most courtyards, but always ask first, especially before photographing the women tying.
- Hands, not faces: many prefer not to have their faces photographed, and some will happily let you photograph their hands at work instead.
- Read more: our artisans we work with piece and our page on travelling responsibly.
Who will love it
Designers, quilters and collectors: and anyone who sews will be in heaven. We can arrange longer sessions over two or three days for serious students.
Families: children enjoy the dyeing and the opening.
- Couples: often make matching scarves.
- The curious: travellers interested in women's lives in Rajasthan learn more in a dyer's courtyard than in any museum.
- Short on time: with only a few days and little interest in textiles, a short walk through Jodhpur's tie-dye lanes with a good guide may be enough.
- Before you shop: if you will buy cloth anywhere on your journey, an hour with a dyer first makes you a far better shopper.
- Combine it: with our textile shopping experience and our page on block printing and crafts.