Kantha o Kahini: Textiles and Storytelling

Traditional kantha were, and continue to be, created from used, worn fabric usually extracted from women’s saris and men’s dhotis. This base white fabric is darned, patched, layered, smoothed, secured with running stitches in white thread to create the new textile. The running stitch, along with a few others, are used to create exquisite patterns and pictures in coloured threads.

Kanthas have typically been the work of women, and often the only traces of their lives to have survived. Not only do we see their extraordinary skill in transforming something ordinary that lost its utility into a new, useful, often precious and beautiful thing, but in looking closely at the images and patterns gives us access to their choices and hence their thinking. This makes them important as material archives, particularly for the nineteenth century when many were not reading or writing.

They are usually created and used in domestic environments.  The repurposed-cloth shawls or wraps, blankets, bedspreads, seating mats, infant receiving sheets, and diapers, are integrated into the everyday lives of Bengali families, household rituals, and more formal ceremonies.

Traditional kantha are a social media of their times. Their surfaces tell many stories that may be shared variously among makers, viewers, recipients.

Others are more private, sometimes hidden in plain sight.

In their circulation from maker to recipient, they often gathered more stories than may be visible on the surface.

This kantha, for example, engages in a  conversation with other textiles in the deliberate play with patchwork, and with other ordinary things like the jati (betel cutter) and kajol lata (kohl container).

On this textile fragment, probably half of the original rectangular kantha, the embroidery reveals how women pondered the deaths of others around them. Three scenes display variations on the theme of torture and murder of women.

The severed neck is a feature that distinguished representations of Elokeshi, a young woman who was beheaded with a boti (knife) by her husband Nabin Banerjee. This followed from his awareness of her seduction and/or rape by the mahant (chief priest) of the Tarakeshwar Temple, in 1873. At the time, this set of events was popularly depicted in watercolour paintings made by the Kalighat patuas, as well as on Battala prints.

The 1873 Tarakeshwar affair, with its sensational court cases that involved European judges and Indian jury, had riveted the attention of the Bengali population.

At the time, Bengal’s women were also embroidering on the events and characters, their versions foregrounding the woman’s body with a wealth of detail.

Unlike Elokeshi, the dead woman on this kantha is flanked by two men. One seems to reach out to support her from behind, the second shrinking, his arm withdrawn. Neither displays the attributes associated with the imagery of Elokeshi’s murder, suggesting that such motifs were employed to comment on the fate of other women, real or imagined.

On the same Kantha, the adjacent panel presents a woman with a similarly contorted body, and a man whose raised hand seems to suggest he is recounting the events.

Yet another woman’s body is contorted in the same pose on a third panel. Here the man bears what may be a weapon in his left hand, distinct from the knife usually held by Nabin, Elokeshi’s husband, in his raised right hand. With the bird and smaller girl or woman crouching at the corner, it offers a third variation.

Such imagery reveals the nuances that women introduced in their design, sometimes working out their thoughts and opinions as they stitched what wasn’t easy to verbalise, even among gatherings of women when they stitched together in the quiet of the afternoons. For example, comparing women’s embroidered images of Elokeshi to others in water colour, woodcuts, plays and farces, predominantly by male artists and writers, suggests complexity and perhaps empathy for the plight and vulnerability of young women.

Namabali Kantha

Here is an example of Namabali kantha. These textiles, typically thin chadar or shawls, were ornamented with the name (nama), most often Vishnu/Krishna repeated through the field of the textiles, thus visualizing a verbal (boli), aural, and meditational practice. On this kantha, it is the Gaudiya (Bengali) Vaishnava Mahamantra: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Ram Hare Ram, Ram Ram Hare Hare.

The mantra is believed to be so efficacious that it can instantiate the divine, melt the heart and transform the singer or listener viscerally. It has been sung as kirtan since the Bengali saint Chaitanya Mahaprabhu initiated the practice in the 16th century The first kirtan sessions were conducted at the home of his devotee Sribas in Nabadwip but gradually overflowed into the streets.

Kirtan processions swept the local community and were visualised in the temples of the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition that were constructed  subsequently in the late 16th to early 17th century.

This kantha is depicting a kirtan performance with devotees playing various instruments as they sing along.

Here, we find the performance includes the use of cymbals and mridanga.

On this Namabali kantha the performance is invoked deliberately:

Each set of the 32 sacred syllables is differentiated by colour. The choice of backstitch creates a continuous even appearance for the words much like handwriting. It enhances the suggestion of a seamless articulation into the full invocation of the mantra.

The arrangement of figures suggests the emission of the sacred mahamantra from their practice, reverberating and falling in concentric squares that culminate at the Vishnupada at the center.

Some of the figures wear more fitted clothes, like that of the bands hired for celebrations.

Others wear billowing robes.

Despite such differentiation, they share a feature — shaven heads with prominent flying pigtails (tiki).

The inclusion of real hair, stitched onto the head of the mostly bald figures, is quite unusual. It may be part of a more private communication, tying a personal relationship between maker and recipient, perhaps protective or aspirational.

Regardless, it suggests that the intimacy of repurposed cloth, held close to the body even before it is stitched, may hold more relationships than those disclosed visually.

The Vaishnava sacred mark (tilak) is suggested on his forehead cleverly, coinciding with the continuous line from eyebrows to nose. Such witticisms are the mark of a highly creative designer.

Such intimate details distinguish embroidered versions of namabali from those woven in silk Baluchari or imprinted with wood blocks.

Printed versions on cotton cloth are worn by priests for ritual performances in the Vaishnava community.

Other instances of Kanthas embroidered with prayers depict Vaishnava motifs punctuating lines of prayer, and include the shankha (conchshell), and the chakra, with the shatadal padma (hundred-petalled lotus) in the center.

Others incorporate the mantra into a temple or ratha form.

All these variations indicate the importance of visualising Krishna’s celestial realm by kantha-makers. Their choices, in turn, suggest that embroidery was a meditative spiritual activity for self-cultivation that yielded internal transformations.

Embroidery thus suggests the convergence of two kinds of meditative practices, one sung or silently invoked, and the other bringing mind to hand and body coordination in the act of stitching, engaging in the rhythm of wrist and fingers with cloth and needle.

This square kantha presents popular local narratives around the central lotus. While the organisation is conventional, the designer incorporates details  that entice viewers to look closely to appreciate her interpretive skills.

The romance of Bidya-Sundar, best known from the eighteenth-century version of the Annadamangal Kabya occupies one scene.

The figures are labeled with their names, although the inked lines have not been stitched.

Sundar, a prince from the southern kingdom of Kanchi obtained a boon from the goddess Kalika to marry princess Vidya of Bardhaman. He journeyed to the kingdom, with a parrot given by the goddess. Here he wooed the princess with love letters and paintings sent through a flower seller. The woman on the horse may be her.

Sundar then managed to meet Vidya through an underground tunnel. Here he is shown  framed under the arch of the flatroofed (dalan style) building. His horse is tethered to the pillar.

Above on the rooftop, the couple enjoy each other’s company.

They sit facing each other on chairs much like European couples as on this Battala print.

The illicitness of their meeting is suggested by the rooftop location, and chairs, a European form of furniture that is often used to suggest the new ways of the colonial period in depictions of encounters between the Bengali babus and their bibis.

With the rise of Shakta devotion and nationalist visions of the goddess at the helm, the bloodthirsty goddesses came into prominence in the visual culture alongside the rallying cry of Bande Mataram in the second half of the 19th century.

The goddess Kali is naked but for her skirt of dangling arms. She holds a severed head in one of her hands, and tramples another underfoot as she advances with weapons raised.

The resonances with prints from the Calcutta Art Studio are unmistakable.

On this print for example, Kali, wearing a skirt of severed arms and garlanded with severed heads, for instance, stands astride two versions of Shiva; Tara on the right, tramples him.

The enemies/demons that Kali combats have varied with historical context. The visual trope was invoked frequently during the colonial period to map the growing resistance to British imperialism.

Along with the sword-wielding figures on elephant and horseback is a shotgun-bearing man, aiming from his treetop perch at far right.

A second goddess, her tongue protruding, grabs a man by his toes to devour him, as is described in the multiplication of deities in the popular narrative text Devi Mahatmya. The tales of the Devi Mahatmya have remained popular in Bengal, with the Goddess and her manifestations leading and winning the battle of good over evil forces.

Playful animal figures also abound in the imagery of this period.

As also seen in this  19th c. Kalighat painting annotated ‘Nishambhu badh’, meaning ‘the killing of Nishambhu’, referring to an episode from the Devi Mahatmya, where the Goddess slays the demons Shumbha and Nishumbha.

In this kantha, the god Vishnu lies with his head on the coils of Ananta or Shesha, dreaming the cosmos into existence. Brahma sits supported on the pink lotus rising from his navel and Shiva stands behind. Lakshmi massages his foot.

The same snake’s head serves as a pedestal for Krishna dancing atop the defeated Kaliya. A figure raises his hand, drawing our attention to the creative use of the snake to bring the two narratives — that of Ananta Shayana, and Kaliya Daman — into one frame.

Elsewhere in the kantha are more recognisable scenes from the mythology of Krishna. The designer has skilfully drawn on the corner plant form to suggest the vastraharana scene — where Krishna steals the clothes of the bathing gopis or cowherd girls — as well as Krishna’s play with the gopas (cowherds) and cows in the pastures. Krishna stands on its uppermost branches, playing his flute, while gopas and cows gather at its base. The gopis raise their arms, a gesture reminiscent of their plea for the stolen clothes.

Visualizing Vaishnava scenes stitch by stitch can be a spiritual practice grounded in the body. The execution of even stitch lengths and spacing, are visible traces of eye and hand rhythm. It might allow a needleworker to slip away from her surroundings and her body, following a line with a sure hand and needle. She might have fleetingly felt herself part of the forms flowering at her fingertips (phute otha), Brindaban as it was emerging in her hands.

Some kantha reveal their relationship to the older embroideries called colchas (Portuguese term for bedspread) created in Bengal for the long-distance luxury trade, most notably with Iberia.

While none of the older colchas survive in Bengal, these kantha reveal their relationship with the long practice of making embroideries for trade. In these kantha, the choice of indigo and red coloured thread, and the sinuous vegetal patterns created using continuous backstitched lines recalls the styles seen most commonly in colchas.

A similar aesthetic quality is seen in other kanthas, of different shapes and functions.

Unfinished areas and underdrawings in kantha tell us about the thought processes involved in making.

While some of the inked lines indicate parts that have not yet been stitched, others reveal choices and changes. As the draughtsperson may not have been the same as the embroiderer, we can sometimes see the relationships between them.

Some kanthas address the recipient directly, in this case, Mohammad Mollah, whose name is inscribed with a blessing, ‘Allah is the refuge’ (bharosha) and his address – Jolseria.

Shree shree Elahi bharosha

Shree Mohammad Molla

Sakim Jolseria

As researchers, our encounter with these cloth surfaces is mediated entirely through photographs. We can only sense their surfaces, the looseness or tightness of stitches with our eyes.

They invite us to feel the thickness and softness, the textures of stitches in our hands.

However, photographs also serve other functions.

The maker of the previous kantha practiced stitches, style and iconography based on this original kantha, which belongs in the Stella Kramrisch collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The kantha also imitates the signature on the original, Bemal Kamini, which has become part of the design of the whole textile.

The Karun Thakar collection thus gives us access to a wonderful range of women’s practices and traces of their creativity. These include the departure of stitchwork from underdrawing revealing series of choices; the economy visible in the use of the same figure to tell multiple stories; the study of an older kantha and even its signature; and the intriguing insertion of hair onto the bald pate of embroidered kirtaniyas.

I thank Desmond Brambley for his photographs of the Karun Thakar kantha collection.