In Jaipur, various Hindu communities including Sindhi Samaj are celebrating Nag Panchami on July 25 this year (2020). Among Sindhis, along with worship of snakes with Pallav Prayer for peace and prosperity of all, cold snacks are being served. Also, prayers for protection from pandemic are being held.
Nag Panchami, marked by worship of snakes or serpent, is observed by Hindus in India and Nepal on the fifth day of bright half of Lunar month of Shravan as per Hindu calendar. It is believed that offering prayers to snakes on this day is auspicious to usher good tidings in one's life.
Here, I would like to reproduce my article regarding the forgotten tradition of Nag Panchami wall art and home-based worship in rural Rajasthan which was earlier published in merinews[1] portal .
In some interior villages of Rajasthan, Nag Panchami is still celebrated by creating a contextual wall art or 'mandana' and worshiping it at the family level. However, in most villages now the trend has almost disappeared.
Earlier, festival motifs and wall paintings were a part of family life education and social learning in rural and tribal areas. In the traditional Nag Panchami, wall painting on a mud wall in tribal and interior rural communities, predominantly women have honed their Mandana or wall painting skills by learning from the elders without any formal training.
The objective has been to practice simple aesthetics on festivals to create reverence-filled home environment for worship at the family level. It is said that due to socio-economic development, creation of pucca or cemented houses, spread of formal education and market-propelled festival observances and social distortions this art form has tremendously suffered. The modern literate generation has no time and inclination to mess about in mud anyway which is the background material for such paintings and tradition is dying out.
Mandana art has always been symbolic visual art of festive and religious occasions sanctified by simple line drawings. Mandana drawings were done on mud-layered walls with a portion of homes colored with Geru and line drawings done in white chalk or lime. It always has simplified presentation of motifs related to the occasion. The internal filling of the body of the form is only textural.
On the occasion of Nag Panchami, a square shape is drawn with a triangle at the top. The vertical sides have hands like depictions while the base line has feet like drawings. Five snakes are shown in the square decorated with stars in the mandana.
[1] http://www.merinews.com/mobile/article/India/2014/08/02/forgotten-tradition-of-nag-panchami-wall-art-and-home-based-worship/15899657
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