Fine Indian Silver Ritual Puja Spoon (Uddharane or Utharini)

This fine ritual spoon cast chiselled and engraved from almost pure silver was used in Hindu temples in Tamil Nadu, South India, for distributing during ritual or puja ceremonies consecrated water and other liquids to devotees, from a vessel known as a snapana battalu.

The baluster-form stem leads to a hemi-spherical bowl surmounted by a protective kirtimukha mask.  The handle or finial of the spoon is in the form of a cobra with a curled hood, perhaps Shesha or Ananta, and is representative of Shiva.

The example here is in excellent condition. It is heavy for its size, on account of the thickness of the silver used but also its purity. The spoon’s religious use dictated the purity of the silver – silver is deemed to be a ‘pure’ metal appropriate for religious use and symbolic of the divine feminine, as well as the moon.

Similar examples are illustrated in Terlinden (1987, p. 176-77), and are attributed yo 18th-19th century Rajasthan.

The spoon is from the collection of Sir Christopher Ondaatje.

Sir Christopher Ondaatje is of Sinhalese and Dutch ancestry and was born in Sri Lanka (or Ceylon as it was known) in 1933. A businessman, writer and Olympian, he is the older brother of author Michael Ondaatje, author of The English Patient, among other works.