Kanjivaram

Kanjivaram silk sarees trace their weaving to Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu, a temple town whose looms have been operating since at least the Chola dynasty of the 11th century. The weave was patronised by the Pallava and Vijayanagara kings, and every major South Indian temple — Ekambareswarar, Kailasanathar, Varadaraja Perumal — has centuries of donated Kanjivarams in its archives. The weaving is traditionally handled by two communities: the Devangas (weavers) and the Saligars (dye masters), whose ancestors migrated from Andhra Pradesh in the 15th century at the invitation of Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara. A true Kanjivaram is woven on a pit loom, one weaver per loom, and takes anywhere between fifteen days and six months depending on the pallu complexity.

Weaving villages: Kancheepuram itself, Arni, Walajapet, Kuthambakkam. Kancheepuram alone has roughly 25,000 active handloom weavers as of the last census.