Guwahati: Assam's opportunity to view Vrindavani Vastra, woven on its soil five hundred years ago, now depends on the French who are assessing India's capacity to return the 16th century textile in the same condition.

Paris-based Musee Guimet (the Guimet Museum) is also concerned about climate control conditions during transportation.

In 2016, then Speaker Ranjeet Kumar Dass, who is now the BJP state president, had requested Guimet officials to lend the Vastra for an exhibition here.

Achal Pandya, head-of-department (conservation) and associate professor museology/conservation at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi, who is the chief resource person negotiating with the French, said this is not an easy task and does not depend on India.

"The French are very diligent and master cultural connoisseurs. Musee Guimet is the owner of the Vastra. It depends on them whether they will lend it to us. If they lend the Vastra to us, we will have to return it in exactly the condition it is lent to us. That will depend on us," he said.

"Even if the Vastra is sent to India, it has to be kept at different locations before being sent to Guwahati. Each of these places has to be equipped with climate control conditions. India has to pay for the climate control box. The Vastra has to be brought in the box and returned in it. Later we can procure the box," Pandya said.

The Vastra needs to be accommodated in a room temperature of 25 degrees Celsius with a plus minus difference of two to three degrees. The relative humidity should be between 40 to 60 per cent with a difference of two to three per cent.

The French are concerned about Assam's relative humidity and temperature which may do irreparable damage to the Vastra in the absence of proper infrastructure.

Vrindavani Vastra is the name given to silk textiles from Assam that depict scenes from Lord Krishna's early life in Vrindavan and the 10 avatars of Vishnu. These textiles were first woven in Barpeta between 1556 and 1569 under the supervision of Vaishnavite saint Srimanta Xankardev.

Musee Guimet is believed to own a piece of this original Vastra. This piece is considered to be the oldest and finest among the Vastra pieces found at museums in the US, the UK, Wales, France and Italy. It measures seven feet eight inches in length and two feet eight inches in width and is exhibited at L'Association pour l'étude et la documentation des textiles d'Asie at Musee Guimet. The museum also has another Vastra piece said to have been woven much later in post-Xankardev era.

These pieces were woven in the Lampa style, which has become extinct down the ages.