RELIGION AND ART
Photo Guide To The Making of Sree Durga Ji Idols – Jai Mata Di!
22 October, Shashti is the sixth day of Durga Puja, when the idols may be seen and worshiped
Sree Durga ji is a powerful and hard hitting goddess. She isn’t one to sit in place and give blessings, she gets out there on a lion, and she beats up a demon called Mahishasura.
Mahishasura is such a menace because Lord Brahma has given him a boon: Mahishasura should be killed by a woman, when it is neither day nor night, and on a surface neither air nor ground.
When Mahishasura runs amuck, the Gods get worried as none of them can kill him, due to Lord Brahma’s boon.
The Gods get together and create Sree Durga from their divine energies, and so she has the best weapons from each. Vishnu gives her his Sudarshan Chakra, Brahma gives her his kamandal, Shiva his trident, Indra his thunderbolt, and Parashurama his axe.
Sree Durga kills him in twilight in mid air, as he is transforming from bull to man, with the bull on the ground and the man’s torso in the air, fulfilling all the conditions.
In the Bengali tradition, Sree Durga and Lord Shiva are the parents of Ganesh, Lakshmi and Saraswati. In some other parts of India, Shiva and Parvati, the Adishakti, are consorts and Lakshmi is the consort of Sree Vishnu. It is not clearly outlined in other cultures that Lakshmi could be the daughter of Parvati (Sree Durga) as it is in Bengal.
The Bengali tradition is that the Mother Durga comes down from her husband’s, Lord Shiva’s, home, Mount Kailash, to the house of her father, Himavan. She stays for 10 days, with her children, and returns to Mount Kailash.
At this point the idols are immersed into a local lake.
Durga Puja is the biggest festival of the eastern part of India. The ten day festival takes off on the sixth day, Shashti, when the idols arrive in the pandals. Pandals are specially constructed silk and bamboo structures which house the idols.
Usually, the pandals are elaborate and may even mimic the White House. (The White House) Artisans work for months constructing temporary plaster and chrome structures, but this year the pandals have been disallowed because of Corona.
All we have to show is the idols themselves, and that is what this article is about.
Victory of good over evil is celebrated as Navaratri or Dushehra in other parts of India, which have their own special traditions.
There is a raw clay stage when the idols of Durga, Ganesh, Saraswati, Murugan, Mahishasura and the Lion are formed.
A fortnight later, the idols are coloured and painted.
The final result includes Durga Ji with Murugan and Saraswati in this picture above.
Mahishasura is a demon who is half-bull and half-man. In this picture the artisan is finishing the bull section.
Durga ji mounts a lion. Mahishasura gets killed by her as he is converting from bull to man.
This artisan works at dear potbellied Ganesh ji.
He has plenty to do, there are 5 statues per pandal. He is lucky to have work to do, many pandals are downsizing this year.
Some of the idols are yellow.
It may be difficult to remember, a stage from 2 weeks ago.
Or the clay from three weeks ago with cracks in the clay.
All you can think of is Jai Mata Di!
May the Goddess turn the tables on the Coronavirus and bring power to the scientists and help find a cure and vaccines.
All photos by author. Photo courtesy Sri Rajesh Kumar of the Telco Puja Committee, who kindly offered to share the unique clay stage of the idols by photograph when he would visit the workshop to check up on progress.
If you check up on this article, that is the evening of Maha Shashti, the sixth day of Puja, I will have added the picture with the faces uncovered. Today, we may see no further.
Additional photos, 6:41 pm India time.
The faces uncovered, the Puja starts now.
Wish you all a very happy Durga Puja!
The oldest artisan in the photographs, who is painting the yellow Ganeshji idol, can make a statue with lifelike features of just about anybody, a la Madame Tussaud’s.