A Forgotten or Lesser Known Ritual

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A common trend among Madhubani artists, the painting seeks to represent some locally prevalent ritual not much in practice now, lesser known or largely forgotten, or a tradition, related to tree-worship, or a fish-ritual, or a ritual linked to both. The tradition, as reflects in the painting representing ponds brimming with waters, an abundance of fishes overwhelming the space even beyond waters, meadows or rather the entire terrain covered with grasses, and trees with vigour and fresh leaves, birds sportingly frisking from branch to branch, and bees full of honey settling their nests on the trees’ trunks, seems to relate to the post-monsoon period, perhaps falling sometime during Sharada season around Dashahara, one of India’s and the Sharada season’s main festivals.

Fish, perhaps because of its divine heights which it attains in Lord Vishnu’s Matsyavatara – Fish incarnation, is pan India now for ages a sacred and auspicious object, and in visual arts, the form of fish, a sacred motif. Maybe for being a rich and essential source of life, in Bengal, Orissa and eastern Bihar with Mithila region its part, fish is held in great reverence and a number of rituals are dedicated to it, some devoted independent to it. In most parts of India a number of social rites, such as a marriage or ‘namakarana’ – the ceremony of naming a newborn, are preceded by offerings made to semi-divine or sacred and auspicious icons fish being one of them. In many parts of the country the sight of a fish on Dashahara morning is considered as highly auspicious.

Still in practice in many parts of the country and one of the aspects of Dashahara rites, on the Dashahara morning fisherwomen would carry to various houses fish in a pot, as is carrying in the painting the woman on the extreme left, for ‘mina-darshana’ – to let the household have the sight of the sacred fish. For this pious obligation the fish-couriering woman would be duly rewarded with offering made to the fish, often in the form of cash but sometimes also in kinds. In some parts a similar ‘mina-darshana’ rite precedes also a marriage ritual. Maybe, the painting is portraying this aspect of social rituals related to Dashahara or a marriage. The painting represents a group of three ladies carrying head-loads, each perhaps a specially designed pot, one in the last on the left, with some fish it. There is no visible sign to assert that other two women are also carrying fishes or even pots on their heads; however, to a Madhubani artist it hardly matters. Arti, the artist of this piece, has painted with each of the three women a pair of two fish, one larger, and another, smaller, suggesting their role as fish-couriers and thus the harbingers of auspiciousness.

Though the woman on extreme left with fish in her pot strongly links the portrayal with fish-rituals, the position of the three ladies moving towards the tree and the prominence that the tree has been given as strongly suggests that the painting’s theme could also be the tree-worship. Besides independent tree-rituals, like Savitri Bata-Puja, tree-worship, like fish rituals, is also a subordinate ritual associated with marriage like all significant social rituals. Tree-worship precedes a marriage-rite. The painting, for further emphasizing the significance of tree, has canopy-like used in the painting another tree-form. As characteristic to Madhubani art style, the painting has been rendered using just two colours, black and red in the main painting, and deeper red, in the border. Black is, however, the painting’s basic colour. Except a few thicker zones, the entire painting is line-drawn and the lines are quite bold. The figures, conceived with sharp features, large eyes, expressive faces and short-heights, characteristically define the Madhubani art idiom.

This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of ancient Indian literature. Dr Daljeet is the chief curator of the Visual Arts Gallery at the National Museum of India, New Delhi. They have both collaborated on numerous books on Indian art and culture.