The Filaments of the Textile Trade: Subtle and Broad Trends in Exports from South Asia to Maritime Southeast Asia

This essay uses an eighteenth-century patolu—a fine silk double-ikat textile—as the jumping-off point to explore complex trading relationship between South Asia and islands of maritime Southeast Asia. Using Dutch Textile Trade Project’s data visualizations, this considers loosening connections specific localities (including Gujarat, Coromandel Coast, Bengal) their characteristic textiles in early eighteenth century. The commerce was further transformed by rise opium trade, a commodity for which East India Company (VOC) had established monopoly