Craft · 5 min read
From block to bhagwan: how a murti is carved
A 24-inch murti passes through five pairs of hands over three to six weeks. What actually happens in the workshop.
It starts at the stone mandi. We reject blocks with hairline cracks (wet the stone — cracks show dark) or heavy iron staining. A good block for a 24-inch murti weighs around 150 kg; most of it will become dust.
The head karigar draws the murti on the block with geru (red ochre), following the traditional proportions — the face is measured in angulas, and the whole figure follows fixed ratios handed down through generations. Rough cutting with grinders removes 60% of the stone in two days. Then the slow work begins: chisels for the form, files for the curves, and finally rifflers small as pencils for eyelids, fingers and ornaments. The face is always carved last, and always by the most senior karigar — a murti's expression is decided in the final half-millimetre.
Polishing goes through seven grits of abrasive, ending with a leather buff. A plain murti ships after quality check; painted pieces go to the colour room for another one to two weeks of fine brushwork, and gold-leaf shringar is applied leaf by leaf at the very end. Visit the workshop and see it live.