The silk is known for its extreme durability and has a natural yellowish-golden tint[2] with a shimmering, glossy texture.

In the Brahmaputra Valley, the larvae of the Assam silkmoth feed on aromatic Som (Machilus bombycina) and Sualu (Litsea polyantha) leaves.

In the Kishkindha Kanda of Ramayana, it is stated that one travelling towards the east has to first pass through Magadha, Anga, Pundra and then the Kosha-karanam-bhumi ("the country of cocoon rearers").

[7][8][9] Kautilya's Arthashastra, a political literature of the 3rd century BC, makes references to the highly sophisticated silk clothing from Assam.

Out of these, Vakula and Naga-vriksa[13] belong to the genus Ericales and Magnolia which the Muga silkworm Antheraea assamensis is known to feed on; while Likucha (Artocarpus lakucha) and Vata belong to the genus Moraceae (Mulberry) which the Pat Silkworm feeds on.

This is further confirmed from the 9th century thesaurus Amara-kosha which mentions that the worms of the fibre Patrorna (a form of white silk), fed on the leaves of Vata, Lakucha, etc.

[14] The Arthashastra also states that the fibre was spun while the threads were wet, indicating that the production method was still the same at that period.

“It is therefore clear that in ancient times traders from different parts of Tibet, Central Asia and China flocked to Assam through various routes, and as they traded mostly in silk, they were generally called Seres – Cirrahadoi – Syrities – Cirata-Kirata.

As per Buranjis, the Chutia king in 1524 AD gifted some golden coloured cloth(Sunali kapur in Assamese, Kham-sin in Tai) as a peace offering to the Ahom king, which may indicate the use of Muga(golden fibre) as royal clothing in the Chutia kingdom.

In the Assam Buranji, the Ahoms are mentioned as "Lunda-Munda Kula Kapur pindha luk" (black-clothed men) in the 16th century,[24] which denotes they wore black cotton clothes till the 16th century similar to the other Tais of Yunnan and Burma.

Due to this adoption of the clothing style of native rulers, Muga production received patronage from the Ahom dynasty in the later period of their rule.

Ahom kings were known to keep many costly muga sets in the royal storehouse for presentation to distinguished visitors to their court.

[6] In 2015, Adarsh Gupta K of Nagaraju's research team at Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad, India, discovered the complete sequence and the protein structure of muga silk fibroin and published it in Nature Scientific Reports.