Rumal, Coverlet

The Rumal is embroidered with verses from the Bhagavad Gita surrounding Vishnu, seated on a lotus at the center along with his consort Lakshmi. The initial printing in blue ink is still visible at places.
The former princely state of Chamba in Himachal Pradesh was renowned for its typical embroidery worked in floss silk threads in darning stitch so as to appear as mirror-image on the reverse side of the fine cotton cloth. To attain perfect symmetry, the embroidery was done by counting warp and weft threads.
Proverbially known as ChambaRumal, most of these kerchiefs were used as coverlets for various utilities.