Durga-Idol Making in Bengal

This book is the second-month report from October to November 2013. The genesis of the Idol of Durga has essentially occurred in the Vedic period in the Vedas and various mythological texts. Through ages, the stature of the Mother Goddess has taken up the varied shape to conform to her varied attributes . Dr. Jitendra Bandopadhyay has put down in his Pauranic and Tantric Religion: “ The speciality of the Arya-stava lies in its disposition of the various strands in the worship of the goddess....... A careful analysis of these names and attributes ascribed to the great goddess helps us to know something about the various factors that contributed to the growth and development of the concept of the composite goddess”. Regarding this Professor Shrivastava, too, has opined: “The symbolic representation of Mother Goddess was also prevalent in the Harappan Communities where the worship of phallic(yoni) was also a practice. Certain objects discovered at Mohenjodaro has their upper and lower surfaces flat, but the upper one takes a quarter foil form.”Thus, myriad ideological, sociological and historical attributes have played decisive role to-delineate the nuanced form of Devi, the shakti, throughout the world and consecutively in Indian Sub-continent and in Bengal. This publication is an outcome of the project under Lalit Kala Akademi, Ministry of Culture, Government of India which is titled as "Preservance and Digitising Art Activities During Puja Festival in Kolkata."