Ahimsa silk

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Ahimsa Silk (of Indian ahimsa , literally the Non-injury) refers to an alternative sericulture in the field, where the silk thread only from the cocoon is reeled after the doll was taken out of the cocoon and the butterfly hatched from it.

The cocoons of wild silkworms from which the moth has already hatched have been collected for ages . However, this silk comes from the Tussah silk moth (in India Tassar) and is therefore also called wild silk . The thread of the tussah silk moth is coarser and more uneven than that of the mulberry silk moth and has a golden hue.

Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence, the Indian engineer Kusuma Rajaiah spent several years researching the possibility of an ethically and economically justifiable method of making silk fabrics from mulberry silk without having to kill the dolls in boiling water, as is done in conventional silk farming. According to his method, the silk thread is only unwound from the cocoon when the butterfly has hatched, and then spun and woven by machine. The result is mulberry silk yarns and fabrics that have found their fans in Hollywood . The cocoons are damaged by the hatching of the butterfly and the silk thread that can be unreeled is much shorter than that of the cultured silk. The extraction and processing of the silk thread is therefore more complex, which explains the higher price of Ahimsa silk.

The fluffy white Eri silk of the silkworm Samia cynthia ricini is also known as Ahimsa silk . The Eri silkworm, like the mulberry silkworm, is a fully domesticated silkworm. He lives in northeast India and some parts of China and Japan. The name Eri is derived from the Assamese word era , which stands for the miracle tree that is the food of the Eri silkworms. Eri silk is also known under the name Endi or Errandi in India . After the caterpillar has completed the cocoon and transformed into a pupae, the cocoon is cut open and the pupa is removed. It serves the population in the north-east of India as a valuable source of protein in their diet. Then the silk thread is unwound from the empty cocoons.

Kusuma Rajaiah is an employee of the Andhra Pradesh Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society (APCO, “State Handweavers Association”) and was granted a patent in 2002 for his processes for eco-friendly Ahimsa yarn and silk production.

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