Ahimsa Silk

In the Ahimsa silk division, silk products are manufactured without killing the large numbers of silkworms in contrast to the traditional process. Silk made by this method is termed as Ahimsa silk. In India, ahimsa silk is produced in many parts, including Benaras, Jharkhand, Murshidabad, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamilnadu.

The process of silk-culture or sericulture is one in which silk products are produced by boiling the pupae, thereby, killing them to obtain their cocoons that are filled with silk. For instance, one gram of silk is produced by killing nearly 15 silkworms and 1,500 silkworms are sacrificed for a mere metre of silk cloth.

While silk is produced by many insects, such as bees, ants, wasps and spiders, textile silk can only be manufactured from the silk of moth caterpillars.

Under sericulture, silk moths are made to lay eggs on a specially prepared paper. The eggs hatched to produce caterpillars are fed fresh mulberry leaves for nourishment. After a period of 35 days, the silkworms turn 10,000 times heavier due to their active spinning of the cocoon.

Straw frames are placed over the trays of silkworms to prevent them from moving, as the spinning requires the worms to move their heads inside the cocoon. Liquid silk produced in the silkworms’ glands is forced through spinnerets. This liquid silk is then coated with sericin, a water-soluble gum that solidifies when in contact with air. In one or two days, a silkworm can easily spin a mile’s length of filament, all of which is encased within the cocoon.

At the end of this process, the silkworm metamorphoses into a moth, but is usually killed using heat before it turns into a moth. Moths are cultivated separately for breeding more silkworms. About seven days before maturity, the cocoons are collected and put into heat chambers with temperatures varying between 70°C and 90°C for about four hours. The worm is killed and the cocoon filled with silk is collected for spinning. For instance, to manufacture a five-yard, hand-woven silk sari, you would need to boil about 50,000 silkworms.