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    Paddy Craft - Where Sustainability Meets Devotion

    Uploaded by

    Jitu Mishra
    The document discusses the traditional craft of paddy art practiced by the Bhattoda indigenous community in Western Odisha, India. For over 4,000 years, rice has been the staple crop for the 46 million people of Odisha. During harvest season, women decorate their homes with murals made from rice flour to invoke Maa Laxmi, the goddess of abundance. The Bhattoda community takes this a step further by crafting idols of Maa Laxmi entirely from unpeeled rice grains using bamboo slivers, splits, and colored threads. Today the craft has expanded to include other objects like carts and figures of Hindu deities, celebrating the symbolic connection between rice, prosperity

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    Paddy Craft - Where Sustainability Meets Devotion

    Uploaded by

    Jitu Mishra
    34 views3 pages
    The document discusses the traditional craft of paddy art practiced by the Bhattoda indigenous community in Western Odisha, India. For over 4,000 years, rice has been the staple crop for the 46 million people of Odisha. During harvest season, women decorate their homes with murals made from rice flour to invoke Maa Laxmi, the goddess of abundance. The Bhattoda community takes this a step further by crafting idols of Maa Laxmi entirely from unpeeled rice grains using bamboo slivers, splits, and colored threads. Today the craft has expanded to include other objects like carts and figures of Hindu deities, celebrating the symbolic connection between rice, prosperity

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    Paddy Craft

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    The document discusses the traditional craft of paddy art practiced by the Bhattoda indigenous community in Western Odisha, India. For over 4,000 years, rice has been the staple crop for the 46 million people of Odisha. During harvest season, women decorate their homes with murals made from rice flour to invoke Maa Laxmi, the goddess of abundance. The Bhattoda community takes this a step further by crafting idols of Maa Laxmi entirely from unpeeled rice grains using bamboo slivers, splits, and colored threads. Today the craft has expanded to include other objects like carts and figures of Hindu deities, celebrating the symbolic connection between rice, prosperity

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    34 views3 pages

    Paddy Craft - Where Sustainability Meets Devotion

    Uploaded by

    Jitu Mishra
    The document discusses the traditional craft of paddy art practiced by the Bhattoda indigenous community in Western Odisha, India. For over 4,000 years, rice has been the staple crop for the 46 million people of Odisha. During harvest season, women decorate their homes with murals made from rice flour to invoke Maa Laxmi, the goddess of abundance. The Bhattoda community takes this a step further by crafting idols of Maa Laxmi entirely from unpeeled rice grains using bamboo slivers, splits, and colored threads. Today the craft has expanded to include other objects like carts and figures of Hindu deities, celebrating the symbolic connection between rice, prosperity

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    Paddy Craft – Where Sustainability Meets Devotion

    “What can you do with a rice grain?

    You can feed it to the crow,

    Or even a pigeon if you know.

    You can take a bite too,

    If you like it raw.

    But can you make a god?

    With rice and sticks

    And no straw.

    I can!

    I live somewhere you might not know.

    I am a Munda

    And I make Gods with reaps of my pain.”

    Oryza Sativa or Paddy or Dhana

    The monsoon has set in both in the high hills and coastal plains.
    Womenfolk are busy these days sowing paddy saplings. There is a lot
    of hard work from morning to evening. But they easy out all their
    pain with sharing emotion and laughter. Soon the muddy water will
    turn into a green oasis, like a field of emerald, sprawling as far as
    one’s eyes can stretch. In 3 months, the greenfield will turn into a
    valley of gold. The paddy is now ready for harvest.

    This is the cycle which is being repeated year after year at least for
    the last four millenniums.
    For 46 million Odias, rice is not just the staple food. It reflects their
    culture, faith and devotion. Dhana is treated as Maa Laxmi, the
    goddess of abundance and prosperity. Every year in the Hindu sacred
    month of Margasira (before the harvest season) the womenfolk of
    Odisha invoke Maa Laxmi by decorating their house floor with a form
    of mural art called jhoti. Made of the ingredient rice flour paste jhoti
    symbolizes Maa Laxmi.

    There are also other arrangements made for Laxmi worship in


    Odisha. However, the Bhattoda indigenous community in Western
    Odisha has gone one step ahead. They use the dhana itself to create
    the image of Laxmi.

    Bhattodas live in the Eastern Ghat Hills and the surrounding uplands.
    Though once widely spread today they are confined to Dabugaon
    locality of Nawrangpur District. Besides Nawrangpur in Nuapada and
    Bargarh districts too paddy craft is practised by the Gond
    community.

    Dhana Murties or Paddy Crafts are unpeeled rice grain idols


    distinctive to the region of western Odisha. Traditionally the artisans
    of the community make Dhanya Laxmi (Goddess Laxmi with
    pedestal). Rice is a symbol of prosperity. Making an idol of Goddess
    Laxmi out of unpeeled rice is considered to be the most preferred
    object.

    Dhana Murti is made using three key elements. Rice grains, bamboo
    slivers and splits and colouring threads. The bamboo slivers are first
    soaked in turmeric water and then kept under the sun for drying to
    make them flexible. Then after the artisan loop the rice grains
    between two thin bamboo slivers using coloured cotton threads
    alone. At the final stage, the artisan sits to fold and coil rice sticks
    into various forms creating objects and idols. The coiled sticks are
    held in place with a complexity of coloured cotton threads, evolved
    to look like beautiful patterns.

    Avinash Patnaik explains here his experience of paddy craft making:

    Today, as demands have increased the spectrum of paddy craft, has


    widened with making of various other objects including carts, idols of
    Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra, Ganesha, Vishnu and his
    incarnations in various sizes, chariots and animal figures such as
    peacock and elephant.

    But the soul of paddy craft is the celebration of Maa Laxmi, an idea
    that binds sustainability with devotion.

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