The vision of Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to preserve and disseminate the unique art heritage of Tibet through self-sustaining means is one the everlasting embodiments of his commitments.
The Tibetan Handicraft Cooperative Society, which was started on May 7, 1969, with a seed money of Rs 15,000 given by the Dalai Lama in McLeodganj, has been earning profit since then. Its annual turnover is around Rs 3 crore.
Its ethnic products include handmade premium sheep wool Tibetan carpets, traditional dresses, handbags, cushions and ritual items that are available in four sale counters in McLeodganj, a small and quaint hill station in the suburbs of Dharamsala town.
The society, run by 40 employees, a majority of whom had fled their Himalayan homeland, creates jobs after training them for three months free of cost with an aim to keep the age-old skill and more importantly, the tradition alive through the hands of master weavers, who had learnt weaving at the tender age.
At present, the hand-knotted rugs with original and contemporary designs of flowers, dragons and eight lucky signs, weaved on vertical looms by tying double knots over a rod, are much in demand across the globe, mainly in Japan, the US, Canada, Britain, Australia and Germany.
Every day, a team of workers while dyeing wool derived from traditional vegetal dyes, laying out designs or weaving carpets chant Buddhist mantras, which they believe will bring happiness and good fortune to the customers. Most of these workers were born in Tibet and had to flee the homeland due to Chinese tyranny to seek refuge in India, where the Dalai Lama was granted asylum on April 3, 1959.
They weave their lives around karma and the carpets. Karma refers to one’s actions and the consequences of those actions, while carpets, mats and Thangka paintings symbolise their day-to-day struggle to survive, thrive and flourish.
One of its acclaimed handcrafted carpets is Tibetan tiger skin with a black stripe on a traditional light brown background which was published in Numero fashion magazine of Tokyo in the October 2022 edition.
Tseyang, a 50-year-old Tibet-born woman weaver, says that each 60-knot rug with a dimension of 231cm x 140 cm employs two people and takes around a month to weave each knot of wool, with the tiger face being the most time-consuming.
This year, the National Cooperative Development Corporation had recognised the Tibetan Handicraft Cooperative Society, which usually weaves flowers, dragons or auspicious eight symbols, as one of the best cooperatives in the state.
“Our export of carpets is over 85 per cent and we have huge orders of tiger-shaped rugs from Australia-based Tim Roodenrys,” says Tibetan Handicraft Cooperative Society Manager Tenzin Rigsang. “We have already shipped carpets of Rs 30 to Rs 40 lakh to him,” he adds.
