This kind of bed is often seen in the rural villages of India. Although most commonly called a charpoy, the bed is also called a a manja, a manjaa, a manji or a khartiya. The bed frame traditionally was made of wood and it has four legs. The part of the bed you sleep on is made of rope that is woven. The earliest reference to a charpoy is described in the quotation from Ibn Batuta.* c.1350.-

“The beds in India are very light. A single man can carry one and every traveller should have his own bed, which his slave carries about on his head. The bed consists of four conical legs on which four staves are laid ; between they plait a sort of ribbon of silk or cotton. When you lie on it you need nothing else to render the bed sufficiently elastic.”-

Charpoys are usually stripped of bedding during the day and aired. Another street scene from Chanderi