The Evolution of Weaving Looms.

In the journey of Devangas down the millennium, technological innovations have shaped our community.

According to 'Devanga Purana' Sri Devala Maharishi invented the art of weaving and spinning his innovations created us.

The earliest looms date from the 5th millennium BC and consisted of bars or beams fixed in place to form a frame to hold a number of parallel threads in two sets, alternating with each other. By raising one set of these threads, which together formed the warp, it was possible to run a cross thread, a weft, or filling, between them. The block of wood used to carry the filling strand through the warp was called the shuttle.

The fundamental operation of the loom remained unchanged, but a long succession of improvements were introduced through ancient and medieval times in both Asia and Europe. 

One of the most important of these was the introduction of the heddle, a movable rod that served to raise the upper sheet of warp. 

In later looms the heddle became a cord, wire, or steel band, several of which could be used simultaneously.

The drawloom, probably invented in Asia for silk weaving, made possible the weaving of more intricate patterns by providing a means for raising warp threads in groups as required by the pattern.

To weave fabric on a loom, a thread (called the weft) is passed over and under a set of threads (called the warp). It is this interlacing of threads at right angles to each other that forms cloth. The particular order in which the weft passes over and under the warp threads determines the pattern that is woven into the fabric.

Weaving was complex and labour-intensive, the fabrics were created by hand,and lack of manuscripts forced our forefathers to memorize each stage of the process of weaving and ensure the right information is passed over to successive generations which in my opinion is a extraordinary achievement.

How weaving pioneered machine programming, If it wasn't for the invention of the Jacquard loom, the modern-day computers may have never have been invented.

In 1801 the Frenchman Joseph Marie Jacquard invented a loom that could base its weave (and hence the design on the fabric) upon a pattern automatically read from punched wooden cards, held together in a long row by rope.

The Jacquard invented the algebra of patterns and constructed the first widely known and used mechanism replacing the draw boy by punched cards to feed pattern information into his mechanism.

To control a weave means to decide whether a warp thread is to be picked up or not. Weaving has therefore been a binary art from its very beginning applying operations of pattern algebra a forunner of computing (computers).

The most common loom works with shafts and treadles and is good for weaving plain or striped fabric. But it also can weave checkers, stars, lozenges or color and weave effect patterns.

Indian Textile industry has been one of the most affluent industries and contributes majorly after the Agriculture industry. 

It is one of the ancient sectors which has grown larger and redefined itself. The handloom sector and powerloom sector are the two important sectors of the Indian Textile Industry that demonstrates the prosperity and diversity of Indian heritage and culture due to its presence in different parts of the country.

The Jacquard Looms, which mechanised the production of patterned textiles & contributed to the transformation of textile weaving from a ‘cottage industry’ run by close-knit families of skilled workers, to a focus of mass production on an industrial scale.

Weaving is one of the oldest manufacturing processes known to man, but in the age of technical textiles it is about to undergo exciting new transformations.

Today Looms are used to produce fabrics for airbags, carbon fabrics for composite structures and aramid wovens for flame-retardant or bullet-proof applications.

We are currently standing on the threshold of a completely new departure, in which wovens can produce not only in two dimensions but also with structuring in three dimensions and with reproducible ‘digital quality’ as it were.

"I call myself a labourer because I take pride in calling myself a spinner, weaver, farmer and scavenger." ~ Mahatma Gandhi.

Compiled by

GaviRangappa S P.

Devanga's Vidhana.

Jai Devanga.