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Stone Carving
Stone craft for them is dominated by sculpting or carving various deities on a piece of stone. Different tribe has different set of deities and they are very large in number too. For every occasion they have a different deity. Protecting, prosperity, punishing, every field has a different deity. And they believe in carving their deities on stone and worshiping them. However the type of stone changes from tribe to tribe.
This is because the different tribal zone has different type of stone in its area, which it uses for the craft. The most commonly used stone is soapstone. Memory pillars are also a significant stone craft of the tribes. These pillars little or big in dimension are installed in the memory of the dead. A hard crusted white stone is generally used for making such pillars. Apart from these crafts, the tribes master the art of making household items in stone, like grinder, rolling pin and many other useful domestic objects.
Later skills were handed down as family lore, from father to son. The famous rock cut temples of
Vidisha, the sculptured stone temples of Khajuraho, the monuments of
Orchha and Gwalior, all stand testimony to the excellence and inventiveness of the stone carvers of Madhya Pradesh. Each region has a distinct style.
Gwalior specialize in jail (lattice) work, Jabalpur and Tikamgarh in attractive items such as statues of animals and human figures and
Bastar in icons of tribal gods and goddesses and memorial pillars.
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