Clay Images of West Bengal

Charles Coleman writing in 1832 speaks of startling images made of clay 'some of which are of splendid appearance and large proportions reaching up to ten or twelve feet high'. An aquatint showing the immersion scene of two Kali images seems to confirm this fashion for making large images. By the 19th c kumars were making images for the public as is apparent from the statment made by P.Ghosha that no respectable family would purchase a ready-made idol from the bazaar.

Many of the families who moved into Calcutta in the 18th c abandoned their village celebrations but maintained their indiosyncratic images and often used the same artists who had been employed in their ancestral homes. The modest images of these traditional families would be no more than six or seven feet tall. Others, however, almost seemed to compete to have the largest and most elaborate image in Calcutta.

Coleman says that no less than half a million rupees was spent annually and that in the 1830s a few wealthy Hindus spent a lac of rupees (which Coleman estimated at £12,500). Some of the affluent Bengalis were in the habit of inviting officials of the British East India Company to their puja celebrations. The foreigners were entertained with dances (nautches), music and food. He writes:

'During the three days of worship in Bengal the houses of the rich are at night splendidly illuminated and thrown open to all description of visitors: and they acknowledge with much attentions the visits of the respectable Europeans.'

Coleman is referring to those days during the festival when visitors were welcomed into the home after the private ceremonies had been completed. Such entertainment would take place in the courtyards of artistrocratic homes which were often built around the thakur dalan, the special building which housed the Durga image during the festival. Since Durga puja is a vrata or vow that involves celebrating the festival for at least five years, it is clear that some sort of permament structure was necessary for this annual event. The colonnades of the thakur dalan echo the shape of the backdrop of the Durga image.

The mansions or rajbaris of the wealthy zemindar families often contained an annexe or separate building used for annual festivals. These flat-roofed buildings are usually called Chandi mandapa or thakur dalan and are built on a north-south axis so that the images face south when they are installed. In some cases, two such buildings are made. B. W. Ward says that a separate temple on the same plan as the chandi mandapa is erected by rich men for the celebration of Syama (Kali) puja. Some dalans can be extremely ornate such as the Durga dalan in the Krishnanagar rajbari erected by Maharaja Rudra Ray in the late 17th c. There is usually a pillared facade leading down to steps. In Calcutta households the dalans are placed at the end of the courtyard as in this photograph. One plate in Charles Coleman's book 'The Mythology of the Hindus' (1832) shows a Durga puja scene in which guests are enjoying a 'nautch' or dance in a courtyard with tarpaulin drawn over it. These dalans are invariably decorated with white plaster.

Inside the thakur dalan the priests take up their places in front of the Durga image with an array of offerings and ceremonial dishes and pots. From time to time drummers will play. It is obvious that the rich Bengalis Coleman refers to also hired dancers to dance in front of the image and entertain their English visitors at the same time.

Today the aristocratic families who once established this form of worship that Coleman writes about still maintain the style of image and the traditional way of installing it within a shrine-like structure so that the home becomes similar to a temple for the duration of the festival. The goddess literally takes up residence in the family home during Durga puja and is treated like royalty. A raised dais elevates the image and sets it apart. During puja garlands of red hibiscus and orange marigolds are hung from each of the images until it is virtually obscured from view.

Coleman also writes about the immersion which invariably attracted large crowds along the ghats beside the Hooghly. He gives a vivid account of the immersion scene on the last day of Durga puja:

'On the following morning the image is, with certain ceremonies, dismissed by the officiating Brahmin. It is then placed on a stage formed of bamboos, and carried, surrounded by a concourse of both sexes, and accompanied by drums, horns, and other Hindu instruments, to the bank of the river, and cast into the water, in the presence of all ranks and descriptions of spectators; the priest at the time invoking the goddess, and supplicating from her life, health and affluence; urging her (their universal mother as they term her) to go then to her abode, and return to them at a future time. During this time a licentiousness and obscenity prevail which too well justify Mr.Ward's indignant remarks on the Hindu festival.' (Charles Coleman, The Mythology of the Hindus 1832)

Many of the genteel Europeans would have been surprised to learn that it was compulsory to make obscene remarks on the last day of durga puja as part of the Sarvarotsava ceremonies.

W.J.Wilkins, another 19th c author, writes that bamboo, grass and Ganges mud were used in the construction of clay images. Holes were drilled in a piece of wood on which the image was fixed. Rough skeletons were then made and covered with a preparation of mud, cow-dung and rice husks. Painters painted the image and decorators adorned it and round the figures was a circular 'roof' (the chalchitra or painted backdrop) which was divided into compartments showing mythological scenes and figures of other deities.

Shib Chunder Bose also mentions offerings made to various deities represented on the chali which is shaped like a crescent over the head of Durga during Durga puja. He wrote in 1881 of the growing desire to decorate clay images with 'splendid tinsel and gewgaws'. Some of the Bengali baboos, he says, send their orders to England for new patterns. He refers to this tinsel as 'dack', in other words, daker saj. During Durga puja, he says that in Calcutta nearly 500 images were made.

B.W.Ward says 'clay images used for worship are never baked in fire, but dried in the sun'.

Solvyns mentions the varnish used by the patuas (meaning perhaps kumars) which he says is superior to that used by Europeans and better suited to the climate. This varnish is still used today over the entire surface of some images both to protect the paint and to give it a lustrous finish.

On the subject of daker saj or tinsel B.M.Ray says it is the hereditary occupation of malakaras or garland and pith makers and he refers to a line in a poem by Ramprasad Sen which mentions the adornment of images of Devi with wire and tinsel. Ray says that the makers of this ornamentation came from a lower strata of society who make their ornaments throughout the year for customers both in and out of Calcutta. He mentions Kumartuli, Krishnanagar, Machubazar, Sherpur and Dacca as centres of this art form. His monograph on the wire and tinsel industry in Bengal includes a picture of a highly ornamented clay image of Kali decorated with daker saj and placed in a Victorian setting with British flags.

Most traditional families still who have images decorated with daker saj will also try and incorporate something within the image that makes it idiosyncratic. For example, this traditional Durga image blends clay with daker saj decoration and includes unusual touches such as little alcoves within the math chauni backdrop. One of these house a tiny clay image of a god while the edge of the backdrop is decorated with clay parrots and pineapples.

It is clear from the accounts of Fray Sebastian Manrique who travelled in Bengal between 1629-1643 that the practice of worshipping clay images predates the British period by at least a century if not more.

Manrique's account, some 200 years before Coleman's, confirms that the urban tradition as witnessed in Calcutta was a transformation of the village tradition of clay image worship. He writes:

'The heathen at the new moon in the month of June, in all the larger villages, hold a public procession in honour of an idol named Druga (sic) who, in their books, is described as a prostitute to their false deities.'

He continues:

'This stumpet is carried along in a highly ornamental triumphal car with a large band of dancing girls who besides dancing, gain their livelihood by prostitution. These dancers go in front dancing and playing various instruments and singing festal songs. After several streets have been traversed in this fashion, these ceremonies in honour of the idol give place suddenly to others full of infamy and dishonour. The idol being taken with all this pomp and circumstance to the river, or if there is no river, to some reservoir, is hurled into it amidst the execrations of the people who pelt it with stones and earth, upbraiding it with being a whore and heaping the most ignominious epithets upon it, accompanied with shouts, yells, jeers and scoffs, when they have thus ended the festival, they return home happy and contented.' (Luard and Hosten 'Travels of Fray Sebastian Manrique 1629-1643).

From further comments it appears that Manrique is describing a Durga puja immersion scene even though he mentions it taking place in June and is very derogatory about the manner of its celebration. It seems that foreign observers were drawn as much to the anarchy of Durga puja as to its pageantry.

Traditional Durga images in the style described by many of these authors can still be seen in Bengal. For example, the Durga image called Rajrajesvari which is made for the Nadia raj in the Krishnanagar rajbari. This important image contains vital clues about the origins of clay image worship in Bengal.

The construction of Rajrajesvari