Restoring Tradition
Each robe begins long before the loom
The Purpose of this Workshop
Cīvara – The Robe of Renunciation
Cīvara is the Sanskrit term for the robe worn across Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain traditions for millennia – the garment of those who have renounced the world.
The Nīlamata Purāṇa, Kashmir’s oldest classical text, records a direct instruction to the people of the valley in verse 714: “The Śākyas should be honoured with Cīvara, food and books.”
Modern scholarship indicates that Cīvara was once commonly made by craftsmen in ancient Kashmir. It is this tradition our workshop continues in Srinigar today.
Above 14,000 Feet
Everything Cīvara Workshop produces begins here – on the Changthang plateau in Ladakh, where Changthangi goats graze above 14,000 feet in one of the most extreme climates on earth.
The fine undercoat these animals grow for warmth against winters that reach -40°C is pashm – the fiber the world knows as Pashmina. Each animal yields a small amount each spring, combed by hand. It cannot be rushed, scaled, or substituted.
Seven Pairs of Hands
The artisans of Cīvara Workshop did not enter this craft from outside. They were born into it – into households in Srinagar where the stages of Pashmina production were simply the fabric of daily life. The sorters, the weavers, the dyers: each knows their stage not from training alone but from a lifetime lived inside it.
This is knowledge that cannot be mass produced. It is generational, distributed, and preserved by the master craftspeople who still make these unique textiles with their hands.
Born Into the Chain
Hilal Goona, the craftsman at the center of this workshop, was born into a Pashmina household in Dal Gate, Srinagar. His earliest knowledge of the fiber came from his grandmother – and from journeys with his uncles to collect raw pashm from the Changpa shepherds of Ladakh and Zanskar.
For over two decades he operated a Pashmina shop on Temple Road in Dharamsala – 150 yards from the gates of the Dalai Lama’s personal monastery, serving the monastic community, pilgrims, and travelers who passed his door.
The Robe That Changed Everything
In 2016 the first group of Tibetan nuns received the Geshema Degree – the doctoral qualification of the Gelug tradition, earned through nearly two decades of rigorous study and practice.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the monks of Namgyal Monastery sought a fitting offering to mark the occasion. A nun was sent to find it on Temple Road. She found Hilal’s shop.
What began as a search for an authentic Pashmina shawl became, through conversation, a commission for a full 5 meter monastic robe. Hilal proposed it. Namgyal Lamas tested it. His Holiness offered it.
What the Commission Revealed
Word quickly spread in Dharamsala’s monastic community about the unique Pashmina robe. A steady stream of monks and nuns came to Hilal’s shop on Temple Road to see them.
For many, the price – approximately ten times a standard wool robe – placed acquisition beyond reach. Those who have renounced material accumulation do not purchase robes at this price.
Hilal watched this pattern repeat and reflected on what the original commission had set in motion. The gap was structural but an answer already existed within the very example for which the robe was created: an offering.
Built Around Offering
Robe offering – the direct giving of robes by lay supporters to monastics and teachers – has been practiced continuously across Buddhist traditions for more than 2,600 years. Recognizing what the commission had set in motion – and the depth of the tradition behind it – Hilal established Civara Workshop in Srinagar to make robes for this purpose.
Hand-loomed from pure Himalayan Pashmina – the fiber that begins above 14,000 feet and passes through seven pairs of hands before it becomes a robe. Every piece is made to order, dyed to your tradition’s exact specification, produced by craftspeople who have worked this fiber their entire lives.