MATA NI PACHEDI

“Where Goddesses Comes Alive”

INTRODUCTION
• Gujarat has a very rich textile tradition. Kalamkari work, in the form of
Mata Ni Pachedi (backdrop of the mother goddess) and Mata no
Chandarvo (canopy of the mother goddess), is a unique textile-
painting and block-printing tradition of Ahmedabad, practised by a
handful of Vaghari community chitaras (painters).
• For the last 300 years , a wandering tribe called the Vaghris have
been keeping a tradition of keeping this scared painting alive
• The tradition of paintings narratives of the Goddess Durga , in her
various incarnations is called Mata Ni Pachedi, which in English
translates as “behind the idol of the Goddess”
 A central panel with
mata standing on a
crocodile

Accompanying imagery
is taken from the
narratives from religious
epics such as the
puranas
 SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS
• The conventional mata ni pachedi uses only 3 hues
• Maroon was associated with Mother Earth and believed to posses
healing power
• Black to ward off the evil eye and strength divine energy
• White which stood for purity
• Traditionally maroon and black were the colours used, with the
surface of the material as the third colour
• Maroon and black were vegetable dyes while white was basic fabric
• Colours are applied with locally made paint brushes, bamboo stylus,
and at times with a cotton wool stick
• Community revelently draws on the fabric and fills in the images by
hand
 COLOUR SCHEMES

• Pachedi always framed with a bold border, termed Lassa Patti

• After this, comes a band of decorative linear patterns
• Black not only was used as a color but also as the outer lining of the
icons and the motifs
• Fillings in the motifs were sometimes replaced by linear work and
pointillist imagery
• Contrasts between positive and negative space to balance the work
Various Forms
RELIGIOUS AND RITUALISTIC
CONCERNS
• The Devi cult is widely popular in Gujarati culture, where the beliefs
and practices of non-literate villagers and oral traditions of myth are
more important than that which is recorded in classical Sanskrit
literature composed by Brahmins. Every village has its own mother
goddesses, depicted without her consort seated on different vahanas
(vehicles). It is observed that they represent mother goddesses
generally without her consort so that they can function independently
without censure in the absence of marital control. Such worship of
village goddesses minimises the hierarchy between Mataji and
devotee (Gatwood 1985).
GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION
• Sarkhej – Ahemdabad
• Rajula, Palitana – Bhavnagar
• Girnar, Porbandar - Junagadh
• Dhrangafdhra – Surendranagar
• Ambaji, Koteshwar – Banaskantha
• Patan - Ptaan
ICOIC ANALYSIS
• Pachedi is the craft that is meant only for the devotees of goddess
Durga
• The boldness of the paintings is reinforced by the starkness of red and
black, the only colors used
• Lady with a flower, trumpets, angles, flowers, the tree of life, and
animals are the most common motifs
• Traditionally pachedi has an architectural rendering of the temple as
its center. Within a bold border, usually, 7,9, or 11 blocks are created,
and at the center, the mother goddess contains the story of the diety.
THANK YOU