Idol Makers and Pandal Craft in Jabalpurजबलपुर के मूर्तिकार और पंडाल की कला

Where the goddess is made

Jabalpur’s Durga idols are not only for the city. In February 2026 The Hitavada reported that idols made by Jabalpur sculptors, Durga and Ganesha among them, are the first choice of many religious committees, and that they are installed in Katni, Narsinghpur, Gadarwara, Harda, Banda and Sagar [1]. The piece followed Ramkumar Prajapati of Gopal Kala Kendra in Ghamapur, who had taken on more sculptors and helpers to meet a rush of orders for Holika idols [1]. That story was about Holi, not Navratri, but it shows how the workshops serve festival after festival.

How many sculptors work in the city, which localities they use and how many generations each family has made idols are not documented in sources we could open. We would rather leave those blanks than guess.

The calendar of a commission

A 2020 report gives a glimpse of the timeline. Sculptors of the Mahakoushal region began their Durga idols three to four months before Navratri, working to the sizes puja committees preferred: 6, 8, 10 and 12 feet [2]. When the district administration, following a home ministry notification, capped height at 6 feet about a fortnight before the festival, one leading sculptor said they were “forced to restructure the idols”, and the article described large-scale panic [2]. It also noted that committee and sculptor could be penalised under Section 188 if idols exceeded the limit [2]. That year’s rule is context, not a standing regulation; we have not found what applies in other years.

Pandals and themes

By late September 2025, about 80 to 90 percent of Jabalpur’s pandals already held their idols, and the paper counted more than 1,000 large and small idols in the city [3]. Pandals took many forms: replicas of famous temples across India, and themed sets such as horror trains and haunted palaces, all lit up for the nights [3]. The deity at some pandals is dressed in a different form each day [4].

The papers do not say who builds these structures, how long they take or what they cost. Reports of the Dussehra season also remind us that a pandal is a temporary structure with crowds beneath it. In 2025 an iron truss attached to a pandal in Gadha collapsed during a Dussehra procession (see Visarjan and Dussehra).

Old idols, old styles

One idol carries a long-standing claim. The Hitavada wrote in 2025 that the Sarvajanik Durga Utsav Samiti in Nunhai installs an idol in a traditional style “since the British era” [4]. Curly Tales, in 2026, says the Nunhai celebration is more than 150 years old and that the idol wears old Bundelkhandi jewellery [7]. Both are journalistic accounts. We have not seen the samiti’s records, so read the age as tradition and the style as the samiti’s own.

Clay, PoP and the kund

The immersion rules shape the craft, because what an idol is made of decides what happens to it in water. The Central Pollution Control Board’s revised guidelines of May 2020 recommend natural clay and natural dyes and avoid single-use plastic and thermocol, but they are advisory; states and courts add their own rules about Plaster of Paris [5]. In Jabalpur, the administration built Visarjan Kunds at Gwarighat and Tilwara after National Green Tribunal directives, so that idols no longer go straight into the Narmada [6].

What Jabalpur’s sculptors actually use, and whether any rule on PoP applies locally, is not in the sources we found. A visit to a workshop in Ghamapur before Navratri, with permission, would be the best way to fill this page in.

Further reading

• Jabalpur ki Navratri
• Visarjan and Dussehra
• Why is Navratri nine nights long?