India Buying Trip September 2014: The Rugs! By Bruce McLaren

Well, this time around for our annual rug buying expedition to India the lucky travellers were Doug and his daughter, Cynthia. Bruce, who volunteered his services, was waved aside by the Grand Maharajah of PooBah, on account of his being needed to do, um, I don't know, whatever it is that Bruce does around here. Like write blogs!

Doug sports the new "Yarn Crown" made popular by One Direction

So first things first, stock has been getting a bit low and it is no exageration to say that in India these days you can find every possible incarnation of a rug, whether it be antique Persian pieces in a plethora of colors, or contemporary designs that are so strikingly colorful they can blow your mind apart. So off to India to buy rugs it is!

In this installment we are going to focus on the work, meaning, the rugs. The next installment will focus more on the jarring multiplicity of life in all forms and designs that combines to make India the land of dreams.

Now there are two ways to go on a rug buying trip. The first is the more refined, gentlemanly of the two. A few days at The Imperial art-deco masterpiece hotel in New Delhi, toying with pink gins at the bar and looking double mysterious. A jaunt down mother Ganges and one can visit the ghats and the spectacle of rows of corpses bring lined up to be cremated. If some are vulnerable to being struck down by madness then perhaps a quick trip up into the Himalayas to rejuvinate ones spirits? Then there is the buying trip that is like a relentless marathon, with endless hours spent on the road, being bashed about with the stopping and starting, potholes as big as war craters. Plus, Indian roads are not as smooth and amenable as those we have become accustomed to in the west.

In a short space of time Doug and Cynthia covered a lot of terrain, visitng around 15 vendors. To get to these vendors you need an agent, Suneil Sikka, who met with them in Delhi before continuing on to Varanasi, Agra and Jaipur. This is the central north part of the country, but is also the centre of rug-production in India.

Whichever approach you take to rug-buying a few things will forever remain the same. For example, the time-honoured, and much desired, cup of tea before buying.

And over tea cetain new ideas are worked up, like in the picture below of an old Persian Heriz. We say "Please make this!" They say "Certainly it can be done!"

More tea with the good people that make it all happen...

Sometimes Doug gets a little heavy-handed in order to seal the deal...

Then respects must be paid to the kings in their compounds, Here Doug discusses the Gnostic aspects of Neo-Platonism with one such rug-mogul outside the palacial headquarters of Ambika.

And what would be a trip to India without a visit to the White House? That's right, one of our main partners in crime has built a replica of the White House. There are gardens outside. And check out the fence! The current president is Sabir...

And then there is the buying, which is a much more sophisticated affair than a decade ago

And, of course, when one visits these emporiums, you invariably encounter the actual rug-making process in all of its facets. This is always the most interesting part of the trip. Got to start with the yarn!

And I mean A LOT of yarn!

What on earth are we going to do with all of this yarn!

Each bundle of yarn actually represents a measured out rug, if you can believe it!

Well, we could begin by spinning the yarn, right?

Then there are the scaled drawings of each rug design to be arranged:

Then there is the weaving. Here is a man at loom, following the scaled plan of the design.

And here are some gents tying and cutting the knots...

Finally there is the clipping:

Followed by a good wash:

And then onto the racks for a final stretch!

Doug and Cynthia were in India for a number of serious reasons:

1. First of all, we manufacture three lines of hand-woven rugs. Our longest running line has been the "Arts & Crafts", turn of the century design movement. Here are some of our new designs being finished off....

2. They were also there to work on our South-Western designs, like this little beauty that we should get sometime soon...

And here are some of our popular South-Westerns all ready to go...

3. They were looking for new rugs that are out there on the market. Like I said in the intro, every design under the sun is being made. Designs that were coming out of Turkey five years ago and Nepal two years ago are also coming out of India now. Nothing stays secret for very long in this game. Lets take a look at some samples of what the punters are into eh!

First up, tone on tone and dual-tones, in muted grays and such, all the rage with desginers right now:

 

Cool "brick" rug in grays and browns

Now for the BauHausesque designs. Big in Germany, strangely enough.

Finally, the reproductions of antique Persian rugs continues on:

Anyway, that's enough for now. In the next installment we take a step away from the rug making and look about a bit! Stay tuned...

Why Are Tibetan Tiger Rugs All The Rage? By Bruce McLaren

Tibetans and Tigers. A long, shared history.

Would you like to sin

With Elinor Glyn

On a tiger skin?

Or would you prefer

To err

With her

On some other fur?

When this poem was penned some hundred years ago, nothing was thought more natural, or desireable, than to frolic about on a tiger skin with a bottle of champagne. The social mores of our own time, however, shun such behavior.

And rightly so, for the tiger is a noble beast, and to shoot one seems akin to commiting a sacred crime, made all the more so by the fact that there are only about 3000 tigers remaining, compared to 100 000 when this ditty was composed. The map below illustrates the sad reality of the depleted range of wild tigers.

Tibetan tiger rugs are an enigma. There are only a handful of antique Tibetan tiger rugs, less than 200 in all, and really very little is known about them. Yet it is increasingly apparant that in the modern rug world the tiger rug is becoming a fashion trend. Many producers of hand-woven Tibetan rugs, nearly all of them based in Nepal, are rapidly coming out with more tiger designs and higher production. The celestial wheel of fashion turns!

A new tiger rug made by Tibet Rug Company

But before more examples of the good new stuff we must ask ourselves what we know of the good old stuff. What traditions are being drawn upon here? Because it is the increasing awareness of these traditions that is behind the demand that is driving this trend.

Tiger rugs were always considered prized possessions, not mere objects to be parted with for damnable mammon. Remarkably, the first tiger rug reached the west only as recently as 1979, purchased by the Newark Museum.

I think it is fair to say that when most people think of Tibet they don't usually associate it with tigers. But as the above map shows, tigers once ranged far and wide across Asia, with a number of sub-species. Tiger rugs are found in Khotan, in the Taklamakan Basin to the north, and tigers still exist further north in Siberia, today. There was once a Caspian Sea tiger that has since become extinct. Yet tigers are certainly still to be found in the Himalayas.

Tiger rugs were known to have been made as gifts for lamas in their monasteries.Tiger rugs have an association with Tantric Meditation. Yogins meditating on tiger pelts is a common motif in Tibetan art. The tiger skin motif was thought to protect the person during meditation, by creating anger that kept away scorpions and snakes and other insects.

Yogis practising tantric meditation on tiger pelts

In religion, these motifs are related to the tiger skin loin cloths depicted in Tibetan thangkas, paintings of wrathful Tibetan Gods. Female gods wear snow leopard spotted loincloths, a design also noted in old Tibetan rugs. Tiger skin rugs were also used in dances at the Tibetan New Year.

Thangka showing stylised tiger loincloth

Tiger pelts were also a sign of power for Tibetan authorities. The tiger symbolised status, ferocity and bravery. Ritual thrones were adorned with tiger pelts and rugs. Warriors wore tiger skins and their graves were decorated with painted tigers. Gods were depicted as riding tigers.

Thangka showing a god seated on a tiger

One of the defining signs looked for on the Dalai lama are stripes on the legs, like those of a tiger. The predominant orange color of the rugs also has obvious connections with the Buddhist proclivity for that color. The tiger motif also served a protective function in other ways, for example being employed flanking the entrance to the White Palace in Lhasa.

Of the old Tibetan tiger rugs there are three basic groups. First are 'flayed' tiger rugs, pelts with arms, claws and head depicted. Second were more abstract representations of the tiger stripe design. Third are tigers walking in pairs, representing Yin and Yang, a Chinese influence. Among these categories some rug scholarly-types identify various sub-groups, such as realistic pelts with stylized stripes and skeleton stripes, pelts with heads at both ends, pelts without heads, stripes with rainbow ends, abstracted wavy line stripes, lip-shaped stripes, paired stripes and so on.

Let's take a look at the good old stuff...

Full pelt tiger rug. Compare to above new tiger rug by Tibet Rug Company

Full pelt tiger rug on green field. Some distinguishing features of this rug are the 'mountain and cloud' motif at each end, which is a Chinese motif. Also of note is the green field, a color associated with feminine qualities. Finally, many of the new tiger rug examples, see both above and below, depict the tiger catching a jewel

Twin tiger rug

Abstracted tiger rug

Abstracted tiger rug with stripes in rows

Abstracted tiger rug with 'rainbow' motif at each end

Before looking at some of the new examples of tiger rugs that are appearing on the market a quick word should be said regarding construction. The orange dyes that are prevalent in these rugs are variations that find their source in the madder root. The knot is particularly difficult to understand compared to the Turkish or Persian knots. The weaving process involves the use of a rod. The pile thread is wound around the two warp-threads above the rod, looped over the rod, before passing onto the next warp-threads. This makes for a continuous thread that only stops when there is a color-change.

The Tibetan knot

OK then! So now that we know a few facts about these mysterious rugs, let's take a look at some more of the reproductions appearing on the Nepalese market.

Yayla Rugs. Cut and loop pile in light field, with Tibetan knot pile for tiger

Catching the jewel

Yayla Rugs.

Reproduction of rainbow end motif

Tibet Rug Company. Fresh off the loom!

Believe me, there is plenty more on the way as well!

On a final note, as proof of my commitment to this blog and the eternal search for truth, here is a picture of yours truly, yogi in the making, engaged in tantric meditation on a tiger rug.