Indian carpet weaving you will find, developed very much on the Indian subcontinent when there were very few civilizations that actually used it and employed it in their day to day usage. It has been found in recent excavations at Moenjodara and in hararppa which are ancient cities in the Indus valley that civilians used spindles and used them to spin a good range of different materials which were used for weaving. Indeed it is within the Indus valley that it is first thought that the use of woven materials was first utilized.
Carpet weaving has developed significantly over the centuries from its humble beginnings to its sophistication today,from the carpet piles to distinct carpet styles like Olefin that are around today.
It has been said that carpet weaving was introduced into civilization in the eleventh century when the very first Islamic conquerors, the Ghauris and the Ghaznavids brought the trade from the west to the Indus valley. Indeed it can be more accurately traced back to the dynasty of the Mughal's in the beginning of the fifteenth century when Babar stretched is rule from Kabul to India so that the Mughal empire could be formed. It was under this rule that the craftsman of the time started practicing Persian techniques of textile weaving and implementing their designs and with this, carpets woven in this area made use of decoragive styles and motifs that were also found in Mughal architecture.
In addition to this Akbar is accredited to introducing the art of carpet weaving to India in 1500 A.D. during his reign. These Mughal emperors patronized Persian carpets for their royal courts and palaces and he brough craftsman from Persia and they worked in the region and Initially, the carpets woven showed the classic Persian style of fine knotting. It was during this time that the carpets made on the Indian subcontinent became so famous that demand for them spread abroad with their distinctive designs which boasted a high density of knots.
During this period, these Carpets that were made for the Mughal emperors, including Jahangir and Shah Jahan, were of the higest and finest quality and indeed under Shah Jahan's reign, Mughal carpet weaving took on a new aesthetic and entered its classical phase. Thus the carpets produced became typical of the Indian origin and gradually the industry began to diversify and spread all over the subcontinent.
