The Three Silks of Assam: Muga, Eri and Pat

Three silks come out of Assam and they are not three grades of the same thing. They are three species of silkworm, eating three different leaves, processed three different ways, producing cloth you would not mistake for each other if you held them side by side.

Most of what is written about this online treats them as a tiered product line, cheap to expensive. That is a shop’s way of thinking about it, not a weaver’s.

What is the difference between muga, eri and pat silk?

Muga comes from Antheraea assamensis and is naturally golden. Pat comes from Bombyx mori and is white and glossy. Eri comes from Samia ricini, is spun rather than reeled, and is matte and warm. Different worms, different leaves, different cloth.

	Muga	Pat	Eri
Silkworm	Antheraea assamensis	Bombyx mori	Samia ricini
Feeds on	Som and soalu leaf	Mulberry	Castor leaf
Natural colour	Golden, deepens with washing	White to off-white	Off-white to pale brick
Yarn	Reeled, continuous filament	Reeled, continuous filament	Spun from broken filament
Handle	Strong, lustrous, slightly stiff	Fine, smooth, high sheen	Matte, soft, woolly, warm
Moth survives	No	No	Yes
Where produced	Assam, essentially nowhere else	Assam and across India	Assam and Meghalaya
Typical use	Highest formality, wedding mekhela chador	Formal mekhela chador, blouses	Shawls, stoles, winter wear
Relative price per metre	Highest	Middle	Lowest

What is muga silk?

Muga is a golden silk produced by Antheraea assamensis, a semi-domesticated silkworm found in the Brahmaputra valley. Effectively all of the world’s muga comes from Assam. It holds a Geographical Indication, registered in 2007.

The colour is not dyed. It comes out of the cocoon that shade, and unlike almost every other textile, muga gets better with washing: the lustre deepens rather than fading. A muga mekhela chador worn by a grandmother and handed down is usually a richer colour than a new one.

Why is muga silk so expensive?

The worm is semi-domesticated, which means it lives outdoors on host trees and cannot be farmed at the density mulberry silkworms are. Weather takes a crop. Disease takes a crop. The yield per hectare is low and unpredictable, the reeling is slow and done by hand, and the whole supply comes from one region.

That is a genuine scarcity rather than a marketing position, and it is why blending is common and why a buying guide exists: how to tell real muga from blended.

What is pat silk?

Pat is the fine, glossy, white silk of Assam, produced by Bombyx mori, the same species behind mulberry silk everywhere. The Assamese strain yields a bright thread that takes dye and zari work well.

Most formal mekhela chador is woven in pat. It is what you buy when you want the garment to look formal and you are not paying muga prices. See the mekhela chador guide for how the two pieces are worn and what to pay.

What is eri silk?

Eri is spun from the cocoons of Samia ricini, a castor-fed silkworm. The moth emerges and completes its life cycle before the cocoon is processed, which breaks the filament. A broken filament cannot be reeled, so it is spun like wool or cotton.

That single processing difference produces a fabric that surprises people who expect silk to be shiny. Eri is matte, dense, slightly textured and genuinely insulating. It drapes with weight rather than slip. In hand it is closer to a fine wool than to a mulberry silk scarf.

Why eri is called peace silk

Because the moth is not killed. The terms ahimsa silk and peace silk both refer to this, and in eri’s case the description is accurate about the process rather than being a label somebody purchased. It is also why eri has an international following among slow-fashion buyers who often have no idea the fibre comes from Assam. More on that audience and the fabric in eri silk, the peace silk.

Which one should you actually buy?

For a wedding or the most formal occasion, muga, if the budget allows and the piece is genuinely muga. For formal wear generally, pat. For something you will actually use often, eri, and it is the one most people are happiest with in ordinary life.

An opinion that costs us money to state: for a first Assamese silk purchase from outside the region, buy eri. Muga is the thing worth owning, and it is also the thing most often sold blended to people who cannot yet tell. Learn the fabric on something cheaper first.

Where it is woven

Sualkuchi, on the north bank of the Brahmaputra near Guwahati, is the weaving town. Most of the silk discussed here passes through it. We went: Sualkuchi, inside the weaving village.

What we have not verified

We have not independently tested fibre content on any sample. Everything above about how the three fabrics behave is from handling them and from what weavers say. Where a claim is about GI status or species, the sources are listed at the foot of this page.