China:

            Silk has the romantic history buried in obscurity. Although the ancient literature pointed out that India cultivated some kind of silk, it is China the world owes the discovery of Mulberry silk. Queen His-Ling-shi discovered silk during 2,5000 B.C.

            Chinese guarded the secret of silk for about 3,000 years , Korea, being the first country come to know about  silk by about 1,200 BC.

Japan:

            The trend was brought to Japan from the four Chinese girls who were teaching “The arts of plain and figured waving “ in the emperor’s court.

India:

          References in Old scriptures like Rigveda, Manusmriti, Ramayana and Mahabharatha definitely pointed out the existence of silk in India by about  two thousand years before the Christian Year. The wedding  gift of “ Sita included fine silken vestments of diverse color.

            Again Yudhisthira received  cloths woven from “ the thread spun by worm “ as a gift from feudatory princes.

            Earlier by the 2^nd century A.D. India was sitting silk & Silken fabrics  Persia.

            It is also stated that about A.D. 400, a Chinese Princess who married  to the king of Khotan carried silk worm eggs and seeds of Mulberry tree concealed the linings of  her headgear.

Silk Road:

            By 126 B.C., fabulous from China and India were carried to Europe through the famous 6,000 miles “Silk Road” passing Tashkent , Bagdad, Damascus and Istambul.

Europe:

            The first notice  of the ‘ Silk worm ‘ in the Western literature described  by Aristotle

            Aristotle may have vaguely learned about the silkworms from the Greeks with Alexander the great who, it is said, marched to Persia to meet the demand of his people from Silk fabrics.

            By about the middle of the sixth  century Emperor Justinian sent two Persian monks to the land beyond Caspian Sea. Eventually they arrived at Khotan during silkworm season, learned the process and smuggled silkworm eggs and mulberry seeds in their pilgrim.

            In AD 947, Roger, the first kind of Sicily invaded Greece and captured a number of silk weavers who were forced to settle in Palermo.

            From Italy, the secret was  migrated to France. Throughout the 18^th century, France enjoyed a prosperous silk weaving trade and sericulture growth. Every victory of napoleon was reproduced in brilliant colours of Silk tapestry by Lyons Silk Plants.

L. Pasteur:

            By about the beginning of 19^th century, a mysterious disease of silkworm broke out. The young scientist Luis Pasteur detected and eliminated the disease by “Cellular  Method” 1822-‘58.

Conclusion: 

            Mohammedan moors & merchants carried  Indian silk & Spices to Europe, Africa and many Asian lands from time immemorial.

            Indian silk trade began with the east India Company. Cossimbazar in Murshidabad district of  West Bengal became the hub of silk industry during earlier to mid 17^th century.

            ‘Diwani ‘ was left to East India Company after “ Great  war of Plassey” in  1757. “Traders become the rulers’.

            While sericulture declined in Bengal, Kashmir and Mysore tried to develop it, ‘Tipu’ sent a native of Tiruchirapally to Bengal to learn “ Sericulture and silk trade” between 1780 and 1790. He introduced Sericulture at Mysore.

            At the same time, James Anderson, the Physician General of east India company imported silkworm successfully to southern India from Bengal in December 1790 .