Motifs and what they mean

Where

Peacock Gate, Pritam Niwas Chowk, City Palace, Jaipur

The peacock stands for beauty, love and the monsoon rains, when it dances. Krishna wears its feather in his crown, and it is the mount of the war god Kartikeya (Murugan). It has been India's national bird since 1963. In textiles, it is the star of the Paithani sari of Maharashtra, whose gold pallu is filled with peacocks, often with green parrots in the borders. In buildings, one of the four painted gates around the Pritam Niwas Chowk courtyard of Jaipur's City Palace, shown here, is covered with peacocks.

Where

This patola was woven in Patan, Gujarat, for the Indonesian market

Made with

Silk, double ikat

The elephant stands for strength, wisdom, royal power and good fortune. It is the head of Ganesha, the god of beginnings, and in the Gajalakshmi image two elephants pour water over the goddess Lakshmi, a sign of wealth and plenty. Patola saris from Patan in Gujarat are famous for their elephants. Patola are double ikat: both sets of threads are tied and dyed before weaving, which gives every shape its soft, stepped edge. Cloths with big elephants were made for export to Indonesia, where families kept them as treasured heirlooms. In stone, a long row of elephants forms the lowest band round the base of the Hoysaleswara Temple at Halebidu.

Where

This one is painted in the courtyard of Likir Monastery, Ladakh

Fish stand for good luck, plenty and fertility. Vishnu's first avatar, Matsya, is a fish. A pair of golden fish is one of the eight auspicious symbols of Buddhism, painted at monasteries, where it stands for happiness and freedom, because fish move freely in water. Fish fill Madhubani wedding paintings in Mithila (see Folk and tribal painting). In Lucknow, a pair of fish was the emblem of the Nawabs of Awadh, so fish are carved over gateways such as those of the Bara Imambara and on objects made in the city, such as carved rock-crystal cups.

Where

Hoysaleswara Temple, Halebidu, Karnataka

When

12th century

The hamsa is a sacred water bird, usually translated as swan, though some scholars think the old texts meant the bar-headed goose. It carries Saraswati, the goddess of learning, and Brahma. Old stories say it can drink the milk out of a mix of milk and water, so it stands for wisdom: telling the good from the bad. The hamsa is one of the oldest Indian motifs, painted at Ajanta and carved in long rows round temple walls, as in the band of birds above.

Where

From the stupa railing at Bharhut, Madhya Pradesh; now in the Cleveland Museum of Art

When

About 150 BCE (Shunga period)

Made with

Sandstone

The lotus grows from the mud at the bottom of a pond, yet its flower opens clean above the water. So in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain art it stands for purity, and also for creation and wealth. Lakshmi, Saraswati and Brahma sit or stand on lotus thrones, and the Buddha compared himself to a lotus rising unstained. Lotus medallions like this one decorated the stone railings of early Buddhist stupas such as Bharhut and Sanchi. The flower is everywhere since: on temple ceilings, in Paithani borders, on the base of the Sarnath Lion Capital, and in modern buildings such as the Lotus Temple in Delhi (1986).

Where

Kashmir

When

This shawl dates from 1785 to 1800

Made with

Goat-hair wool, woven in the twill tapestry method

The paisley is a teardrop with a curled tip. It began in Persia, where boteh means a bush or a flowering plant. On early Kashmir shawls it was a single flowering plant in the end panels, but over the 18th and 19th centuries it grew into a tight cone of flowers with a bent tip, the buta. Kashmir shawls became the height of fashion in Europe, and weavers in the town of Paisley in Scotland copied them on machines, which gave the shape its English name. Many Indian languages name it after the mango: kairi (raw mango) in Hindi and Urdu, ambi (mango) in Punjabi. The mango has its own lucky meaning too: mango leaves top the kalash and are strung over doorways for festivals.

Where

Coromandel Coast, south-east India, made for the European market

When

1700 to 1740

Made with

Cotton, painted with mordants and dyed (the kalamkari method)

A single great tree, with its roots in the earth and its branches in the sky, stands for life itself: growth, fertility and the link between earth and heaven. Its most famous Indian form is the palampore, a painted bedcover or wall hanging made on the Coromandel Coast for export to Europe in the 18th century. The artists drew with a kalam (pen) dipped in mordant, a fixing chemical, so that the dye stuck only where they had drawn: the same method as Kalamkari. A palampore usually shows one flowering tree rising from a rocky mound, with birds, animals and exotic flowers. The same idea appears in stone in the famous jaali of the Sidi Saiyyed mosque in Ahmedabad, with its curling branches.

Made with

A metal or clay pot, water, mango leaves and a coconut

The purna kalasha ("full pot") is a pot of water with a ring of mango leaves and a coconut on top. It stands for abundance, fertility and life, and it is set up at the start of weddings, house-warmings and pujas so that the new beginning is full and fortunate. It is one of the oldest Indian motifs, known since the Vedas, and is carved as a "vase of plenty" on Hindu, Buddhist and Jain shrines. You also see it at the very top of a temple tower, where the pot-shaped finial is called the kalasha, and in floor art, as in Pongal kolams and the wedding alpana further down this page.

Where

Bengal

When

Pala period, about 11th to 12th century

Made with

Carved conch shell

The conch is blown like a trumpet at pujas and in temples, and heroes in the epics blew conches before battle. It is said to be the home of Lakshmi, so it also means good fortune. Vishnu holds a conch, called Panchajanya, in one hand and the chakra (a spinning discus) in another, so the two appear together in countless images of him. The white conch is also one of the eight auspicious symbols of Buddhism. Bengal has carved conch shells for centuries, from finely engraved shells like these to the white shell bangles still made there.

Where

Sun Temple, Konark, Odisha

When

13th century

The wheel stands for time, movement and the law that keeps the world turning. In Buddhism the Dharmachakra, the wheel of the teaching, recalls the Buddha's first sermon at Sarnath, and Ashoka's wheel from the Sarnath capital sits, with 24 spokes, in the middle of India's flag. Vishnu's chakra, the Sudarshana, is his weapon. The grandest wheels are at Konark, where the whole temple is the chariot of the Sun god, Surya: 24 carved stone wheels run along its base and stone horses pull it.

Where

This one was made for a wedding in Karur, Tamil Nadu; the name is used in Maharashtra and across India

Rangoli is the best-known name for Indian floor art, used in Maharashtra and now across the country. It is made with bright coloured powders, rice flour or flower petals, and is drawn above all for Diwali, when lamps (diyas) are often set into it. In Maharashtra and Karnataka a rangoli at the door is also meant to keep evil away. In Keralam (Kerala until 2026), the flower carpet made for Onam, the pookalam, grows bigger every day of the festival.

Where

Tamil Nadu and across South India

Made with

Rice flour, often with a red border of kaavi (red earth)

Every morning before sunrise, women across Tamil Nadu sweep the doorstep, sprinkle it with water and draw a kolam in white rice flour. Most kolams start from a grid of dots, called pulli, which the lines either join or loop around, so a good kolam is a puzzle of symmetry. The rice flour feeds ants and birds, and the drawing is walked over and redrawn the next day. Bigger, more colourful kolams are made in the month of Margazhi (December to January) and for Pongal, the harvest festival. In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana the same art is called muggulu, drawn especially for Sankranti.

Where

West Bengal (and Bangladesh)

Made with

A white paste of rice flour and water, or chalk and water, applied with the fingertips

Alpana is the floor and wall art of Bengal. It is painted with the fingertips in a white paste of ground rice and water, so it shows up white on a dark floor. It is drawn for weddings, for Lakshmi puja and for festivals such as Durga Puja. An alpana for Lakshmi often includes her owl, a granary, a conch and lotuses, and in the monsoon a sheaf of rice for the sowing of paddy. Artists such as Nandalal Bose at Santiniketan, and Abanindranath Tagore, who wrote about its motifs, carried alpana into modern Indian art.

Where

Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh; this one is at Shilpgram, Udaipur

Made with

White lime or chalk on a ground of cow dung, clay and red ochre

Mandana is painted on the floors and walls of village homes in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, to protect the house, welcome the gods and mark festivals. The surface is first coated with cow dung mixed with local clay and red ochre, and the design is drawn on it in white lime or chalk with a piece of cotton, a tuft of hair or a twig. The Meena women of the Hadoti region, around Kota and Bundi, are known for perfectly symmetrical mandanas. Designs include geometric squares and circles, flowers, peacocks and Ganesha.

Where

Tomb of Salim Chishti, Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh

When

Built 1580 to 1581, under Akbar

Made with

Marble

A jaali is a stone screen pierced with a pattern. It lets light and cool air in, keeps out harsh sun and rain, and lets people inside see out without being seen. Early temples used jaalis to soften the light, and in Indo-Islamic buildings they became a high art. Geometric jaalis repeat stars, hexagons and polygons, like this marble screen round the tomb of the Sufi saint Salim Chishti at Fatehpur Sikri. Natural jaalis show plants and trees, like the curling tree of the Sidi Saiyyed mosque in Ahmedabad (1572 to 1573) and the fine floral screens of the Taj Mahal. Architects today use brick and concrete jaalis again to cool buildings without air conditioning.

Where

This sand mandala was made by Tibetan Buddhist monks in London in 2008

Made with

Coloured sand

A mandala is a sacred diagram of the universe. Its basic form is a square with a gate in the middle of each side, set inside a circle, with a centre point where the deity lives. In Buddhist art the square is a palace for a god, seen from above, and a person meditating imagines travelling inward to its centre. Tibetan monks build mandalas grain by grain from coloured sand over days or weeks, then sweep them away to show that nothing lasts. The idea of a sacred square grid also lies behind the plans of Hindu temples.