Vrathapani: An ancient Indian Temple Art Becomes Wearable Craft

 Vrathapani: A Craft Jewel of India

A temple tradition of having more than 3000 years old history of narrating history and religious stories through hand drawing and painting on clothes become wall hanging in the temples. These wall hangings were created to guide and generate interest about history for the coming generations through visuals.

Vrathapani literally means writing work becomes Kalamkari when influenced by the Persian King reign, when they usurped the Golkunda region during 14th - 15h century. Kalamkari is a Persian word, kalam means "Pen" and Kari means "Artwork".

This beautiful hand work is a classic example of richness of living Indian handcrafted textile continued by traditional craftsman and artists.

Process

This craft cum art goes through a tedious process of 18 steps to get final product ready. (Detailed process will discuss in another blog.

Motif/Design

Motif or design used in Vrathapani are inspired from epic like "Mahabharat" & :"Ramayan" and other ancient scriptures of India. So various stories inspired from the life of God and Rishis are drawn in this art.

Few of the concepts like "Ardhanarishwar", "Rampattabhishekam", "ShivDarbar", "KrishnLeela" and many others used in wall hanging and Saree pallu mainly. Today motif inspired from nature, birds and rural life also used.

Ram Darbar (Court of king ShriRam)

Floral Design

Past & Present

It's a complete hand drawn and hand painted work. A bamboo pen is used to draw outline and Hand painted using brush with different colors. In past 100% Natural dyed were used today it's a combination of both natural and synthetic dyes are used in the process.

In past mainly incidents related to epic, history and religious texts were drawn. Today various new concepts are used to draw by the artists. In past it was a temple art but today it is converted into wearable craft.

In last but not the least when temple patronized art was on the verge of extinction due to lack of funds with temples unable to support these artists, late Smt. Kamladevi Chatopadhyay came to rescue this temple art. She explored the possibility of this dying temple art to convert it into wearable craft to sustain and reach to the more people. With her efforts we see today Vrathapani is a living textile with few changes in its process and target audience.