---
title: "Boteh"
description: "A boteh, or buta, is a teardrop or cone-shaped motif from India and Persia that Europeans came to call paisley."
type: Glossary
url: https://teazle.art/glossary/boteh
published: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-14
author: "The Teazle editors"
---

# Boteh

*A boteh, or buta, is a teardrop or cone-shaped motif from India and Persia that Europeans came to call paisley.*

A boteh (also spelled buta) is a teardrop or cone-shaped motif, often filled with flowers and leaves. It is the shape Europeans now call paisley.

## Where does the word come from?

In India and Persia the motif is called buta or boteh. The [RISD Museum](https://risdmuseum.org/exhibitions-events/exhibitions/whats-name-paisley-pattern-kashmir-shawls) notes that its origin is debated: one theory links it to a wing or leaf form in ancient Near Eastern art, another to a single flower flanked by leaves in seventeenth-century Persian art. The Cleveland Museum of Art describes botehs on Kashmir shawls as the end point of a change from [isolated plants to dense blossoms packed into cones](https://clevelandart.org/art/2008.215).

## Why do we say paisley?

Because weavers in Paisley, Scotland, copied Kashmir shawls so widely that the town's name became the English word. The full story is in [Why is it called paisley?](/finds/why-is-it-called-paisley-kashmir-shawls).


## Sources

1. [What's in a Name? The Paisley Pattern in Kashmir Shawls](https://risdmuseum.org/exhibitions-events/exhibitions/whats-name-paisley-pattern-kashmir-shawls). RISD Museum
2. [Apricot Long Shawl, 1785–1800 (2008.215)](https://clevelandart.org/art/2008.215). Cleveland Museum of Art

Canonical: https://teazle.art/glossary/boteh