The spinning wheel (charkha)
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Was the spinning wheel invented in India?
Disputed: evidence incompleteTechnology & engineering
Indian claim
Many Indians see the charkha, made a national symbol by Mahatma Gandhi, as an ancient Indian invention, and some scholars have argued it was used in India in the first millennium CE.
Evidence for the Indian claim
- India had a very old and large hand-spinning industry using the spindle (takli), which was the basis for its cotton trade.
Commonly credited to
Historians Irfan Habib and Arnold Pacey argue that the spinning wheel was invented in the Islamic world (or China) by about the 11th century and reached India later; the earliest clear Indian reference is in Isami's Futuh-us-Salatin (1350).
Evidence for the other claim
- The earliest clear drawing of a spinning wheel is from Baghdad (1237); Chinese evidence of wheel spinning may be older still.
- Early Indian references to spinning are ambiguous and may describe spindles, not wheels.
What historians and scientists say
Hand-spinning of cotton is ancient in India, but the evidence currently points to the spinning wheel reaching India from West Asia around the 13th–14th century. Its earliest origin is still debated.
Sources