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Carpet Weaving
Quality and price wise, Indian carpets give you great value for money. The
Mughal emperor Akbar established carpet-weaving centers at Lahore and Agra to supply his imperial court with good hand-knotted carpets in Persian, Turkish and Central Asian designs.
These are still being made and sold in Agra, a major tourist center. The carpet weaving centers of
Varanasi, Bhadoi, and Mirzapur were set up by a Persian master weaver in the 17th century. The handmade carpets, rugs and prayer mats from
Uttar Pradesh, Kashmir, and Rajasthan are finding their way into Arabian palaces and American mansions.
Agra in Uttar Pradesh is one of the old carpet centers of the Mughal days. It produces both the traditional as well as the new designs. The weaving is done under the
"calling out" system in which the master weaver follows the design and keeps calling out to the weavers the colors to be used for each knot. Among the oriental design carpets made, the
Indo-Ispahan and Indo- Kashan are alike except that the former has the long leaf and the latter the small leaf and flower.
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