Phulkari within the Mughal–Persianate Aesthetic A Folk Embroidery of the Punjab Read Against the Courtly Floral and Garden Tradition

Abstract

Phulkari, the floss-silk embroidery of the Punjab, is conventionally classed as a women’s domestic folk craft rather than a product of the imperial atelier. This paper does not overturn that classification but reframes it, arguing that phulkari is best read as a vernacular refraction of the Indo-Persian — broadly Mughal — floral and garden aesthetic that governed the visual culture of northern India from the sixteenth century onward. Moving from the pre-Mughal roots of the craft and the early-modern trade networks that supplied its materials, through its traditional designs, material culture, regional distribution, and the semiotics of its motifs, the paper situates a rural craft within a courtly aesthetic horizon without overstating any claim of direct imperial patronage.