rumi's nakshi kantha

The most famous folk craft form is Nakshi Katha or embroidered quilt...Traditionally, village women used to stich layers of old sari together with folk designs in red blue, yellow and green...These followed a particular form and style...Around these motifs fine white stiching created a ripple effects to bind the separate layers...There is a variety of stiches and design but there is a unity in the traditional arrrangement of a padma lotus in the centre or mandap, a tree of life in each corner, kalkas, mythical figures, animals, birds, geometrical objects, symbols of the sun and moon, the swastika, each representing a part of the village women's cultural conscience and the whole relating story.

The story of Nakshi Kantar Math itself spread out in front of us like a beautiful quilt...One can almost see the fields, the young girls, villagers and the still night.                                                                        

     nakshi kantha design

                 

                                                                  

Quilt making for the home had died out in Bengal by 1925 but is now being revived using old patterns and methods amd good quality materials. Traditionally, a lotus flower is the central motif of many kanthas; the lotus was thought to provide protection from the evil eye and to be a supplication to the gods. Another popular design was the mandala - symbolising the unity of the universe. As in Western samplers, Bangladshi women would also embroider familiar homilies into their kanthas. For many Muslim women, however, it was thought to be against Koranic principles to use figurative representations. Kanthas however were always uniquely the product of the women who made them and of her imagination.