Ritual is the colourful art of worshipping a deity. The two most
popular rituals are Pooja and Yajna. Besides other parts of the
rituals, the person performing them wears a special prayer cloth
which most often has the image of the deity who is being
worshipped.
Yellow is the colour of religion and ascetism. This prayer cloth
in yellow seeks to appease goddess Durga in her most benevolent
form. The entire field has the invocation mantra written in the
auspicious Devanagari script. Enclosing the massive field of the
repetitive mantra is a border containing sacred symbols. The two
ends of the long cloth contains images of Durga depicted as a
queen armed for battle. In this 'Singhavahini' form, she is
seated over the lion's back in lalitasana. In her eight arms she
holds the weapons given to her by various gods which includes a
bow and an arrow, a trident, a sword, a mace, the chakra and a
padma and a conch shell too. With her left hand she makes a
blessing gesture to her devotees. She has a halo around her
crowned head. Her peaceful countenance spreads peace and ask her
devotees to have faith in her. The lion that she rides look
ferocious yet contained under her.
The red imprint on yellow cloth infuses religion with energy
associated with Durga. The prayer cloth ends in neatly cut and
tied tassels.
Textiles
