Sacred Designs Bloom across the Courtyards
Bala Kanda, Doha 296
Doha 296 · Movement 2 of 2
Keep this contemplation
Preserve, print, or share
Each household takes responsibility for its own threshold, walls, and rooms. Auspicious objects are placed with care until the entire city becomes a collection of intimate wedding shrines.
The streets are sprinkled clean, darkened and cooled by water before the procession. In square courtyards, skilled hands fill the ground with graceful sacred designs.
These decorations will be crossed by feet, dust, wheels, and celebration, yet their temporary nature does not lessen devotion. Beauty is made for the hour in which it is needed. Every swept lane and coloured pattern says that Ram's joy belongs not only to the palace but to the ordinary ground upon which Ayodhya lives.
From royal road to household courtyard, the earth itself is prepared to receive the wedding journey.
Read the passage from the Manas
मंगलमय निज निज भवन लोगन्ह रचे बनाइ। बीथीं सीचीं चतुरसम चौकें चारु पुराइ।।296।।
The people decorated their own homes with auspicious adornments. The streets were sprinkled clean, and the beautiful square courtyards were filled with lovely sacred designs (chauk).