Browse By Deity
Every figure in a Kerala mural was painted according to precise iconographic rules. The colour of a deity's skin was not an aesthetic choice — it was a theological one, derived from the deity's guna or inherent nature. The gestures, the weapons, the vahana or mount, the ornaments — each element was specified in Sanskrit texts that painters memorised and followed as devotional obligation. To browse by deity is to follow the visual grammar of the tradition. A visitor who moves through the Krishna entries, then the Shiva entries, then the Devi entries begins to read the grammar — to see how the same colour appears across different sites, how the same gesture recurs in different narrative contexts, how the same deity was visualised differently by different painters working from the same dhyana sloka. Select a deity below to see all documented murals depicting that figure.
Colour Guide
Green or Dark Blue
Satvika deities: Krishna, Rama, Vishnu, Durga. The image shows a depiction of Lord Vishnu playing the mizhav.
Saffron red or yellowish-red
Rajasa deities: warrior forms, energetic manifestations. The image shows Lord Ganesha recieving his pooja.
White
Purity, dissolution, celestial beings: Hanuman, Saraswati. The image shows one of the calmest forms of Lord Shiva, the Dakshinamurthy.
Black or Dark
Tamasa forms, Shaivite deities in certain manifestations. The image shows Shaivaite deity Shiva’s bhoothaganas.
This colour system is a guide, not a rule. Artists exercised interpretation within the framework.
Select a deity to explore.
Iconographic descriptions for each deity are available within individual mural entries. For a fuller explanation of the colour and gesture system, read the essay Rasa Theory & Aesthetics in Contexts.
