Balaji Padmavathi Cheriyal Mask – Hand-painted Telangana Folk Art

The tall, tiered gold crown on this pair is unmistakable to anyone who has stood in the queue at Tirumala - it's the same kirita-mukuta silhouette associated with Lord Venkateswara, known across Telugu-speaking India simply as Balaji, paired here with Goddess Padmavathi, his consort. Made in the village of Cheriyal near Warangal in Telangana, this set brings one of Andhra and Telangana's most recognisable devotional images into the roughly 400-year-old Nakashi mask-making tradition, a craft awarded a Geographical Indication tag in 2010.

Balaji's mask is painted a serene blue, with a vertical tilak marking his forehead beneath the crown's tiered gold peak, flanked by disc-shaped ear ornaments. Padmavathi's mask, in a warm peach tone, carries the same towering crown alongside a nose ring, a round bindi, and floral jewellery detailing worked across her cheeks and chin — the fuller ornamentation typically given to goddess figures in this tradition. Both masks are hand-built the traditional way: a core of tamarind seed paste and sawdust shaped over several days, coated in white lime, then painted entirely by hand using natural pigments and a fine brush for the crown's intricate linework. This is the same base technique once used to make the masks that travelling Chindu storytellers carried from village to village, a craft today sustained by only a small number of Nakashi families.

Given Balaji and Padmavathi's central place in South Indian devotional life, this set is a meaningful housewarming or wedding gift, and a fitting choice for anyone wanting a piece of Andhra-Telangana temple iconography rendered in genuine folk art rather than a mass-produced devotional print.

Material: Tamarind seed powder, sawdust, cotton cloth, natural colours

Dimensions: 5.5 inches x 9 inches x 3 inches (each mask)