This Tamil New Year, we look at the evolution of the kolam

Celebrate Tamil New year with a kolam, a tradition that has endured and evolved over centuries of culture, across mediums like gold, pearl, rice and now, puzzle blocks

“I remember my grandmother telling me that when independent India was announced, women of Madras decorated entire roads in Triplicane and Mylapore with large kolams to celebrate,” says Chennai-based historian Meenakshi Devaraj. The academician pauses mid-conversation, mulling over the varied socio-political, cultural and ritualistic roles played by kolam over centuries.

The journey of kolam is an interesting one, from a humble agrarian offering in the Sangam period, to its role in ethnomathematical research and edu-games in the 21st Century.

“This practice started as a bali [offering] when we were an agrarian community. Our produce was mainly paddy, so people would put an offering of paddy at the entrance of homes and commercial spaces everyday. After some time, this turned into offerings of rice. This is mentioned in the texts of Sangam literature, dating back over 2,000 years. In my own research, I found that this ritual slowly evolved into the format of kolams by the 8th or 9th Century,” Meenakshi says.

It was in the 8th Century, she says, that people truly started to get creative with the kolam: “It took on other versions, besides the patterns made out of rice flour. The habit of making kolams out of flowers began then, as did the panchavaranam: a five-coloured kolam in black, white, red, yellow and green.”

For the powers that be of that era — such as kings and wealthy merchants — special occasion kolams meant patterns drawn with powdered gold and pearl powder. “An actual reference comes in a literary work called Seevagasinthamani, in the description of king Seevagan’s wedding ceremony. All this happened in the 8th Century,” says Meenakshi. 

From the common man’s perspective, she adds, “Apart from mentioning kolams done in front of houses and ritual places, Tamil literary works also talk about kolams done in the kitchen before cooking, and in places where food was served. This shows the respect they had for these places.”

Today, the kolam has evolved, but there is plenty that has still remained unchanged over centuries. For instance, the traditional morning and evening kolam ritual of Tamil Nadu — cleaning the floor, sprinkling water, sometimes adding cow dung paste as a background, and then drawing a white pattern using rice flour — is described almost exactly the same in the 9th Century, in Alvar saint Andal’s collection of verses Nachiar Thirumozhi.