Producer unknown to us
Lamp
Asia, India
Prior to 1914
Brass
Ludwig Reichardt (missionary)
Purchased by the museum from Reichardt in 1914
SAs 09217
The museum has a collection of household and ritual objects from South India by Lorenz Friedrich Reichhardt. Among them is this brass lamp. Reichhardt described the lamp in 1898 as "the most accomplished piece by the brass founders." The lamp was used at the Pana festival in Chittur, North Cochin, as part of the ritual to worship Goddess Bhagavati.
"At the Pana festival in Chittur, North Cochin," he writes, "one draws a floral pattern with rice flour on the ground in the courtyard under a bamboo canopy. A metal lamp is placed on it, a stool in front of it, and a pot of water with a lotus blossom in it is placed on the stool. The pot is covered with a cloth. It is believed that the goddess Bhagavati is in it." Bhagavati, also Lakshmi, was said to be the goddess of happiness.
Reichhardt, who was born in Erfurt in 1873, was one of the last Leipzig missionaries to work in southern India before the outbreak of the World War I.
Carola Krebs