Everywhere in India, Hindu women regularly decorate their homes and surrounding grounds with symbols honoring the energy and strength of the Divine. Each region has its own style of decoration, but the designs-passed down from mother to daughter-also vary from one household to the next. Most rural dwellings in India are surfaced with a mud-and-cow dung mixture that provides a canvas for a wide range of motifs.
Women in some areas create paintings each morning as prayers to the deities who protect the home and family. Others are done annually for holy festivals associated with seasonal activities like planting and harvesting crops or acknowledging the phases of the Moon. Women paint their walls and floors to celebrate a birth, marriage, death or other significant event. No matter the context, this ritual art is meant to be temporary and will peel or fade over time, to be reapplied for another occasion.
• Lotus — symbol of Lakshmi
• Fish — symbol of Vishnu
• Peacock — open-mindedness of Hindus
• Design — no meaning, but looks nice
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