© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Traditional Tibetan Refugee Rug Weaving Industry – INDIA

Whilst the rug making industry in Tibet stretches back hundreds if not thousands of years, to satisfy monastic institutions and wealthy families need for khaden (a comfortable and warm seat carpet measuring 3 feet by 5 feet), Nepal is currently the largest global producer and exporter of Tibetan rugs followed by India.

Notwithstanding the Chinese Communist occupation of Tibet in the 1950s, the Tibetan rug industry faced sharp decline in the mid 20th century from its heydays in the 19th and early 20th century. Social upheaval that begun in 1959 is said to have given rise to the decline followed by experiments of collectivisation that left rural Tibetans with little time to weave; drastically cutting off khalden supplies to monasteries, the biggest procurer of Tibetan rugs.

The decline was exacerbated when many of the aristocratic families who formerly organized the weaving workshops of the best quality Tibetan rugs fled to India and Nepal, lending a further blow to the waning Tibetan rug industry. With them, they brought their knowledge of rug making and reorganised workshops that saw the revival of Tibetan rug weaving in the 1970s within the refugee communities of Nepal and India.

Although initially weaved by Tibetan refugees, local non-Tibetan workers were soon recruited, which eventually replaced the original Tibetan weavers. With increasing export demands and cost pressures, new materials, designs, machinery and rugs of larger sizes were introduced by the non-Tibetan workers with the aim of accommodating the living rooms of the export markets; thereby eroding the ancient tradition and contributing towards the disappearance of knowledge.

Over time, the Tibetan rug producers have abandon the traditional use of  Tibetan highland sheep’s wool, changpel, and unique knotting method (that is different from that used in other rug making traditions globally), for rugs weaved by machines out of inexpensive imported wool and cheap dyes, thereby marring the quality of Tibetan rugs. With more informed customers today, these cheaper and poorer quality rugs are now  marketed as ‘Tibetan styled rugs’ and sold widely in Nepal, India and Tibet for the tourist market.

However, the finest quality of Tibetan rug, in which every process – from yarn spinning, dyeing, knotting and trimming of the pile after weaving – is done by hand still exist in pockets of refugee communities and Tibet. Here, tradition continues to run thick and the Tibetan rugs are still made for flooring to wall hanging to horse saddles, and  the most commonly used purpose: a seating carpet, khaden, for monks… definitely not a size that would do your western styled home living room any justice and a hefty price tag that will have you chocking over your butter yak tea.