The Auspicious Ghata – Pot

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This marble artifact is an example of rare craftsmanship seeking to chisel out of a solid rock a pot with no mass within – an absolute hollow, and no dissymmetry beyond – a perfect round, a volume but without weight, attaining such level of finesse that a piece of stone looks like the finest of Dhaka muslin – transparent and translucent. This ‘ghata’ – pot, has not been sculpted like a Purna-ghata for revealing its symbolic or ritual significance or for using it for accomplishing a rite for texts do not ever recommend a stone pot for rituals, more acceptable being those of metals or the earthen. It is more like a magic pot seeking its significance in its power to mesmerize the eye by its unique beauty astonishing by the very thought as to how the chisel might have reached within and the hammer could strike it inside a concavely carved space. Marble, the stone the ‘ghata’ has been carved from, is not a soft rock but is capable of giving forth forms as delicate as a feather and this pot presents an example.

Perfect in modeling and unparalleled in fluidity, perspectives of height, breadth and all seem to simply flow out of its form. Sometimes it seems like a colourful bubble that the air or the empty space breeds, and sometimes, a form, melting back into air or space. Not merely that the sculptor has transformed a piece of stone into a pot with delicate walls, not thicker than a centimeter or so, he has incised with thread-like fineness their exterior with flower motifs, leaves, stems and graphics to contain them within. Besides brilliantly colouring these forms the junctions where the two or more ends meet have been embedded with semi-precious stones. Whether the twelve-petalled flowers, the main decorative motif, the tiny plants with a pair of leaves and a flower with five petals rising on a large pistil, inverted floral patterns, tiny leaf forms, dots or inverted flame-motifs, all have been painted in gold yet with their widely different forms, and edges of each petal, leaf or other motif, identified in different colours, the pot generates a feeling as breathes a garden with diverse flower-beds in full bloom.

This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of literature and is the author of numerous books on Indian art and culture. Dr. Daljeet is the curator of the Miniature Painting Gallery, National Museum, New Delhi. They have both collaborated together on a number of books.