The Chamba Rumal — How Himachali Women Embroidered Their Way Into Art History

What Is a Chamba Rumal?

A rumal is a cloth. In Chamba — the northernmost district of Himachal Pradesh, bordered by Kashmir and Ladakh — the rumal became an art form. Between the 17th and 19th centuries, women of the Chamba royal court and aristocracy embroidered square cloths (typically 1-3 feet across) with scenes from Hindu mythology: the Raslila of Krishna, episodes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and portraits of local deities.

The technique is distinctive: do-rukha (double-satin) stitch, which means the embroidery looks identical on both sides of the cloth. There is no "wrong side." This requires extraordinary skill — every stitch must be planned so that the thread passes cleanly from front to back without creating knots or loose ends. A single rumal of moderate complexity could take 6-12 months to complete.

The Art

Chamba rumals were not decorative textiles. They were narrative art — equivalent in ambition and sophistication to the Kangra miniature paintings being produced simultaneously in the neighbouring valley. In fact, the two art forms shared a visual vocabulary. Many rumals were embroidered from designs (called nakshas) drawn by the same artists who painted Pahari miniatures.

The colours came from natural dyes: indigo for blue, madder for red, turmeric for yellow, pomegranate rind for brown. The silk thread was imported from the plains. The cotton base cloth was locally woven. A masterwork rumal uses over 30 shades of thread, blending colours with the needle the way a painter blends on a palette.

The most famous surviving rumals depict the Raslila — Krishna's moonlight dance with the gopis. The figures are fluid, joyful, draped in transparent muslin rendered thread by thread. The background shows the Yamuna river, flowering trees, and a full moon. Standing in front of one of these in a museum, you forget you are looking at embroidery. It reads as painting — until you step closer and see the individual stitches, thousands of them, each placed with surgical precision.

The Women

Unlike the miniature paintings — which were produced by professional male artists — the rumals were made by women. Royal women, aristocratic women, and later, women from artisan families. Their names were never recorded. The Chamba court documented the male artists who drew the nakshas; the women who spent months or years executing the embroidery were considered craftswomen, not artists.

This is the quiet injustice at the heart of the Chamba rumal: the art that requires the most patience, the most skill, and the most time was attributed to the designer, not the maker.

The Decline and Revival

The British annexation of Chamba in 1846 ended court patronage. By the early 20th century, the do-rukha technique was nearly extinct. A few families in Chamba town continued to practice, passing the skill from mother to daughter, but without patronage or market, production dwindled to a trickle.

Revival efforts began in the 1950s through the Himachal Pradesh state handicrafts department. Today, the Bhuri Singh Museum in Chamba town houses the finest collection of antique rumals. A government-supported workshop in Chamba trains young women in the do-rukha technique. Production is small — maybe 50-100 rumals per year — and prices reflect the labour: a good rumal costs ₹5,000-50,000 depending on size and complexity.

Where to See and Buy

The Bhuri Singh Museum (Chamba town, entry ₹20) has rumals dating to the 17th century. The Himachal State Handicrafts Emporium in Shimla and Delhi stocks contemporary pieces. In Chamba itself, a few shops near the Chowgan (the central promenade) sell rumals — ask for do-rukha specifically, as cheaper single-sided versions exist.

Visit Chamba in August during the Minjar Mela — a week-long festival celebrating the maize harvest. The Chowgan fills with stalls, music, and traditional dancers. The embroidery workshops open their doors to visitors. You can watch a woman — probably in her 20s, probably the fourth generation of her family to do this — thread a needle with silk, lean over a cloth frame, and add one more stitch to a tradition that has been alive for 400 years.