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Looking at the photos in Painted Prayers: Women's Art in Village India, a book by Stephen P. Huyler, I'm dazzled by the edible, ephemeral art. In some areas of India, each day before dawn women make paintings on the ground in front of their houses to fete a domestic goddess. In other places they paint outer walls and doorframes during certain holiday and festival times, all in honor of her. They use paint made of rice powder. The art doesn't last. Things eat it. A young woman interviewed in the book says, "This powder itself is auspicious. It feeds birds and small insects. Holy puranas tell us to be good to other beings. By these kolams (the daily designs made on the earth) we are sharing our food." The paintings aren't just effaced by hungry creatures; they're smudged by movement, the flow of existence. Life doesn't stop because the art is there. The rice powder paintings, whether white or colored by natural dyes, quickly disappear. Following custom, women make new paintings at the appointed times. Paradoxically, the patterns for the paintings aren't edible and ephemeral. They're handed down from mother to daughter, generation to generation. They travel with brides from village to village. They constantly change in individual hands. In some regions where the women's art is particularly vital, women keep notebooks of patterns and are constantly creating and inventing. All in honor of Ma. That's one of the names of the domestic goddess; she's different in different places but she's one in her spirit of abundance and protection, and Ma seems to me a good universal name for her. A primal syllable, frequently the first uttered by infants crying for nurture, protection, sustenance, guidance. Edible ephemeral nurture -- permanent patterns of existence -- spiritual and physical requirements – we ask those blessings of our Immortals, our guardian spirits. Always, the old prayers; constantly, new prayers. Admiring the ancient forms that make the designs for India's "painted prayers" I'm reminded of the Farsi alphabet, so I write -- |
The Persian alphabet – letters waving
o's and curves at me, words wending their
way to me from right to left – knits new
patterns for an old pet prayer,
"Bestow upon me a heart diamond-
bright," and i add, "that I may be like
King Jamshid's cup of immortality
and lift up my heart in turquoise hands."
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This apple is long gone, but Apples remain. |
