| Folk Arts - Master Artist - Bhu Dayal
Bhu Dayal, also known as Bhaja Govinda Das, is a master artist in Sringar, the Indian art of deity dressing. Born into a family of Pujaris, the caretakers who tend to the deities of a temple, Dayals’s parents and grandparents taught him deity dressing by the age of five. Dayal later took formal courses from the International Society of Krishna Consciousness in the spiritually significant arts of Sringar and vegetarian cooking. Inspired by Guru Radha Govinda Swami who trained him, Dayal educates youth in traditional Indian arts to preserve these endangered customs. Dayal is a pujari for the Krishna temple in Sammamish, where he dresses deities in different ensembles and adorns them with garlands each day. A deity is one of the several forms that can be taken by a Hindu God, in this case manifested into a statue, to accept the devotional services performed by his or her devotees.
As the recipient of a 2007 Folk Arts Apprenticeship grant, Dayal worked with Jayendran Srinivasan, who has informally practiced Sringar in the past under family training and more formally in the last five years through spiritual mentors. Srinivasan developed the skills to dress the large deities of a temple by expanding on his knowledge drawn from dressing his home deities. Dayal’s teachings focused on choosing the correct dress for a deity to suit astrological calculations and seasons, as well as to be in accord with Vedic holidays.
Dayal received a second Apprenticeship grant in 2008 to work with Mohan Padmanabhan. He continued to teach the aesthetic principles for adornment with headdresses and accessories and other precepts relating to deity dressing. Padmanabhan showcased his refined deity dressing abilities when he designed an altar for the Kumbha Mela Festival at the Vedic Cultural Center in Sammamish.
Dayal has been awarded another apprenticeship award in 2009 to teach Jenny Parikh large temple deity dressing skills. This means she will learn how to dress the deities correctly each day-- decorating them with the appropriate jewelry and headdress, painting the body, attaching instruments or weapons, and decorating the whole alter area. Parikh has been involved with deity dressing traditions for the past nineteen years and she has been regularly dressing her home deities for the past three years.
Together, Dayal and Parikh plan a public showing of the dressed and adorned deities at the Krishna Temple on Nrsimha Chaturdasi in May 2010. Dayal is helping to educate today’s youth in these ancient arts and to experience the satisfaction of seeing well-decorated deities. | |||
