Tradition · speculum-metal mirror craft
Araṇmuḷa kaṇṇāṭi
Also known as Aranmula mirror, Aranmula kannadi, metal mirror, Araṇmuḷa kaṇṇāṭi — the metal mirror
A front-surface mirror cast in a tin-copper alloy and polished for days, so that the image forms on the metal itself with no glass in front of it and therefore no secondary reflection. Made by a few families at Aranmula on the Pamba.
- Function
- Trade & production
- Confidence
- Not assessed
- Location
- 9.326, 76.683
Worth knowing
The alloy proportion is a family secret that has never been published, and the pieces are cast in clay moulds made from the local river silt; polishing a single mirror can take a fortnight or more. It was among the first Indian products given a geographical indication, in 2004-05, precisely because the process cannot be moved elsewhere.
Connections (3)
- Craft tradition ofAranmula
The mirror is made by a small number of families at Aranmula, the Pamba-side village whose Parthasarathy temple and boat race already gave it a name, and it is the temple settlement that explains the craft: the metalworkers were brought in to serve the shrine and stayed. The tin-copper alloy proportion has never been published, the moulds are made from local river silt, and a single mirror can take a fortnight to polish.
- Craft tradition ofSwāmimalai bronze icon casting
The Aranmula mirror and the Swamimalai bronze are the two Kerala and Tamil metal crafts whose secret is an alloy: a tin-copper mix polished to a front-surface mirror in one case, and the five-metal panchaloha cast by lost wax to Shilpa Shastra proportion in the other. Both are made by a handful of families, both hold geographical indications, and in both the exact composition is family knowledge that has never been published.
- Craft tradition ofPadmanābhapuram Palace
Padmanabhapuram's floors are a polished composite of egg white, lime, burnt coconut shell and river sand, its windows are glazed with coloured mica, and its whole structure is jointed timber — the same Kerala tradition of doing without stone and glass that produced the Aranmula metal mirror, where the reflecting surface is a polished tin-copper alloy because there was no silvered glass. Both are material improvisations that became specialisms.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Aranmula kannadi”. Geographical Indications Registry (Government of India) filings; Ministry of Textiles and Sangeet Natak Akademi craft documentation.
Open Araṇmuḷa kaṇṇāṭi in the repository →