pashmina

A Cashmere; a goat native to Kashmir.

The fine wool that grows under the hair of this goat; cashmere.

A soft fabric made from this wool; (in particular) a shawl made from this fabric.

However, Leh's most important product is the soft underwool of sheep and goats, most of which are tended by nomads, men who roam about the uplands with their herds. It is this fine, soft wool which is used to make the famous pashmina shawls of Kashmir.

Pashmina was invented more than four hundred years ago when Nur Jaban, wife of the Emperor Jehangir, asked her weavers to present a woolen fabric that was "as light as a cloud but as warm as a tender embrace."