Sravana Maasam or the month of Saawan is very special for us Indians. The North Indians worship Lord Shiva through out the month. Mondays are especially considered as auspicious for worshiping Lord Shiva.
South Indians- on Tuesdays; married women worship Goddess Gauri (Consort of Lord Shiva), for longevity of their husbands, and well being of their children, in-laws, whole family, unmarried women for marriage to a good husband-in all a good family life. On Fridays- mainly the one before the full moon , all women worship Goddess Lakshmi for health, wealth, prosperity and well being of the family.
The puja done on Friday is known as Vara Lakshmi Vratam. The Goddess Lakshmi is made by hand and decorated with silks and jewellery. Each house has its own tradition of how to make this. Women compete with each other to make their creation of the Goddess beautiful and special.
Here is one which I decorated in one of the previous years:
So for celebrating this occasion I have been creating some new Rangolis.
Since we use Kalash(a gold or silver pot shaped vessel with a coconut on the top) in the prayers, I have used that as the main motif for my Rangolis for this month. So I will first post how I drew it.
This is the basic pot structure I have used. I kept it simple as filling colour in the final design will be difficult. You can see the number of dots, how they are placed and how a pot is drawn using these dots.
This is one way of decorating the pot. There are many other ways which I will be posting in my next posts.
This is pot with a coconut placed on a pot. This is known as Kalash. I have given just the basic one
I will also be posting variations of it. Look out for Rangolis for specially for the puja performed during the month of sravana.
OH! By the way this single Kalash motif can be drawn before the Puja mandir. This can be drawn for Lakshmi puja as well as the Puja done during Dasherah or other occassions.