Page:Durga Puja - With Notes and Illustrations.djvu/125

 white earth and the figures described of various weapons and yantras. The ground rice is evidently a substitute of white clay (chalk) mentioned in the Sastras.

(2.) mock ornaments are made of the pith of sola, the Indian cork, and the corks are cut into thin sheets and required designs by men of the mali (gardener) caste, whose business it also is to prepare garlands and ornaments of flowers and of mock flowers (of sola). Formerly the malis used to decorate the idols. But now-a-days the ornamentation theof the [sic] idols is very expensive and forms a lucrative trade by itself, and those, who follow it, are called Saj-wallas (ornament-makers) or Dak-wallas (dealers in tin.) The crude materials used in preparing mock-ornaments are sheets of sola, foils of tin beat into a variety of patterns, plates of mica slates split into the thinnest sheets, possible and one side silvered over with mercury, beads of various size and patterns of sola or some light wood wound round with silver or gold laces and little discs of gold or silver. These are combined into a variety of shapes and forms and made to represent the jwelled [sic] ornaments used by the ladies of Bengal.

The head dress is called a Mukuta, it is a peculiarly shaped, flat ornament a few inches broad, wound round the forehead, a disc like projection, rising high from the central portion of the same. The entire ornament is made of iron wires twisted and curved into a cluster of graceful flowers and leaves. This ornament has no equivalent in the boudoir of the Bengali lady. It is exclusively used in decorating idols, it is something like a tiara.

The hairs of the idols are made of blackened jute. A common pratima if ordinarily decorated costs generally between Rs. 80 to Rs. 100, but the actual