Khasa (Cossa, Cossaes)
was a high-quality variety of
calico
Calico (; in British usage since 1505) is a heavy plain-woven textile made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. It may also contain unseparated husk parts. The fabric is far coarser than muslin, but less coarse and thick than ...
cloth that was manufactured and used for clothing in the
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the ...
.
Name
Khasa or means special.
Khasa was termed “kashak” in the
Ain-i-Akbari
The ''Ain-i-Akbari'' ( fa, ) or the "Administration of Akbar", is a 16th-century detailed document recording the administration of the Mughal Empire under Emperor Akbar, written by his court historian, Abu'l Fazl in the Persian language. It for ...
, and was also known as 'jangal klasa' for its fine close weave.
Khasa is one of seven cotton cloths named in the Ain-i-Akbari.
Features
Khasa was a cotton fabric softer than
longcloth and more closely woven than
muslin
Muslin () is a cotton fabric of plain weave. It is made in a wide range of weights from delicate sheers to coarse sheeting. It gets its name from the city of Mosul, Iraq, where it was first manufactured.
Muslin of uncommonly delicate hand ...
. It is described as having been soft and closely
woven, with a fine texture.
In the 16th-century emperor
Akbar's time, khasa was considered to be one of the best and most expensive types of cotton cloth. It was commonly used for turbans in the Mughal era.
Dimensions
Khasa, like other
piece goods
Piece goods were the textile materials sold in cut pieces as per the buyer's specification. The piece goods were either cut from a fabric roll or produced with a certain length, also called yard goods. Various textiles such as cotton, wool, silk, ...
, were produced with specific dimensions; regular khasas were having dimensions of 20 x 1 or 1.5 yards. The number of threads was in warp direction were 1400–2800 with the weight of 595 grams /pc (with 2800 threads).
Production centers
Khasa made in
Sonargaon
Sonargaon ( bn, সোনারগাঁও; pronounced as ''Show-naar-gaa''; lit. ''Golden Hamlet'') is a historic city in central Bangladesh. It corresponds to the Sonargaon Upazila of Narayanganj District in Dhaka Division.
Sonargaon is one ...
was considered to be of particularly high quality.
It was also produced in
Dacca,
Malda, Santipore and
Cossimbazar. “Rahon Khasa” was cloth produced at the town of
Rahon in
Punjab
Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...
.
Exports
Thomas Bowrey, an English merchant and mariner in the East Indies trade in the late 17th century,
described Khasa as a kind of
muslin
Muslin () is a cotton fabric of plain weave. It is made in a wide range of weights from delicate sheers to coarse sheeting. It gets its name from the city of Mosul, Iraq, where it was first manufactured.
Muslin of uncommonly delicate hand ...
that was the cloth most commonly exported from Dhaka.
References
{{Textile-stub
Woven fabrics