Sacred Trees, Cosmic Rivers and Mountains: The Mythical Landscapes in Gond

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By Vanirathi Nathani

  • India
  • Painting
  • Folk Art

    • Table of Content

    When the Earth is a Canvas and the Sky a Story

    In the heartland of India, where tribal traditions still murmur through the rustling of leaves and the flow of riverbeds, lies a world painted in pulse and pigment—Gond art. Created by the Gond people, one of the largest Adivasi communities in India, this vibrant visual tradition is more than just decoration. It is a living mythology, an oral history painted onto the walls of homes and now, canvases.

    But Gond art does not merely depict the world. It reimagines it. Forests become temples. Rivers become gods. Mountains, the shoulders of ancestors. In Gond cosmology, nature is not separate from the divine—it is the divine. This article ventures deep into the sacred landscapes that flow through Gond imaginations: trees that hold the memory of the world, rivers that connect life and death, and mountains that rise like guardians watching over time itself.

    Graceful Deer: Gond Painting by Venkat Shyam

    The Sacred Tree: Where Gods Rest and Ancestors Speak

    Among the most recurring motifs in Gond art is the tree—towering, spiraling, alive with birds, beasts, and memory. Trees are more than flora. They are storytellers.

    One of the most revered trees in Gond belief is the Kalpavriksha, or "wish-fulfilling tree." It is believed to have the power to grant desires and connect the earthly realm with the divine. Elders say that the souls of ancestors rest in certain trees. To walk past such a tree is to walk through a living shrine.

    Gond artists often paint trees teeming with life—not just symbolically, but spiritually. Each animal that curls into its branches is a spirit, a lesson, a tale. The tree becomes a stage where the entire cycle of life plays out—nesting birds, prowling tigers, slithering snakes, and invisible gods. In this way, the tree is not a part of the painting—it is the painting.

    Birds in Gond art by Manoj Tekam
    Tree in Gond art by Manoj Tekam

    Rivers of the Cosmos: Flowing Between Worlds

    Rivers in Gond mythology are cosmic pathways. They are not just channels of water but carriers of history, karma, and consciousness. To the Gond mind, a river flows not just through land but through time. It births civilizations and buries secrets. It nourishes, cleanses, destroys.

    Many Gond artworks feature rivers that ripple with geometry—waves marked with rhythmic patterns, echoing the pulse of the universe. These rivers often flow through scenes of village life, but they are also filled with gods, fish spirits, and celestial serpents. In death rituals, water is central—believed to carry the soul across realms.

    These rivers, both real and imagined, flow through stories told by grandparents under moonlight—stories that find themselves again in the swirl of a painter’s brush.

    Fish in Gond by Kailash Pradhan

    Animals, Spirits, and Stars: Who Lives in These Landscapes

    The mythical Gond landscape is never empty. It teems with life—real, remembered, and imagined. Tigers are not just predators; they are protectors, forest kings, and often the totem animals of Gond clans. Peacocks symbolize fertility, snakes transformation, and birds the passage between worlds.

    In many paintings, the sun and moon have faces. Stars are arranged into celestial processions, and spirits emerge from the patterns in rocks and trees. These aren’t fantasy creatures—they’re ancestral presences, watched and remembered through art.

    Each dot, line, and color choice is intentional, loaded with meaning. The technique itself—known for its intricate dotted textures—creates a sense of movement and rhythm, as if the land itself were breathing or singing.

    Deers and Birds in Gond by Braj Bhooshan Dhurwey
    The Nature's Collage in Gond by Braj Bhooshan Dhurwey

    From Wall to Canvas: How Gond Landscapes Travel

    Traditionally, Gond paintings adorned the mud walls of homes—blessings to the house, tributes to gods, and symbols of protection. But as modernization crept in, the walls disappeared. The art, however, adapted.

    Pioneers like Jangarh Singh Shyam were instrumental in bringing Gond art onto paper and canvas, allowing it to travel beyond village boundaries and into galleries and homes around the world. Today, Gond artists blend tradition with contemporary themes—depicting trains as serpents, cities as mechanical forests, yet always maintaining the spiritual logic of their ancestors.

    What’s remarkable is that even in its most modern forms, Gond art never loses its mythic quality. A mobile phone tower might rise like a mountain. A cityscape might be crisscrossed by celestial rivers. The divine still pulses through everything.

    Why It Matters Today: Ecology, Memory, and Cultural Survival

    Gond landscapes are not just aesthetic wonders—they are ethical blueprints. In a world hurtling toward environmental collapse, the Gond philosophy reminds us of a time when humans listened to trees, feared rivers, and worshipped the mountain’s silence.

    Each painting is also an act of cultural preservation. It defies erasure. It reclaims visibility. In painting a tiger on canvas, an artist protects it from extinction—at least in memory, if not yet in law.

    As forests are cut, rivers dammed, and hills mined, Gond art becomes a silent protest, a call to remember the world not just as resource, but as relative, ancestor, and god.

    Conclusion: Listening to the Land, Learning from the Brush

    To truly see a Gond painting is to enter a world where nothing is mundane. The earth breathes. The river sings. The tree remembers.

    In these mythical landscapes, time loops like a snake eating its tail. Myths are not things of the past—they are living maps guiding the present. Gond art teaches us to pause, to listen, and to see the land not just as a setting, but as a sacred participant in our shared story.

    So the next time you see a spiraling tree or a tiger walking across a painted sky, don’t just admire it. Step into it. Because somewhere in its roots, its ripples, its ridges—you might just find yourself.

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