24 September 2026 · Blog
Sanjhi: the goddess Haryana's girls build on the wall
Walk into a Haryana village during Sharad Navratri and you may see a face looking at you from the courtyard wall: wide eyes, a nose ring, a crown of tiny clay stars. This is Sanjhi Mata, and she is made only by girls.
Weeks of preparation
Soon after Pitru Paksha begins, girls collect clean clay from the pond and shape hundreds of small stars (taare), discs, and the parts of the face: eyes, ears, nose, mouth. These are dried in the sun and painted white with chalk and bright with colours.
Building Sanjhi
On the first day of Navratri the wall is plastered with fresh cow dung. While it is wet, the pieces are pressed in: first the face, then the body, arms and a skirt of stars, until the figure covers the wall. Sometimes her brother is made beside her. Clothes, jewellery and bindis are added, and each evening the girls light a diya and sing to her.
The songs
Sanjhi songs talk to her like a friend who will soon leave: what will you eat, who will take you to your in-laws? Girls go from house to house and are given sweets and coins. The songs are also an early lesson in the life of a married daughter leaving her maika.
Visarjan on Dussehra
On Dussehra evening Sanjhi is gently taken off the wall, her face is placed in an earthen pot with a diya, and the girls float her in the village pond. Boys traditionally try to break the pot with stones before it reaches the middle — a playful piece of mischief nobody can explain.
Sanjhi is also known in Braj and parts of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, but the clay-relief style on cow-dung plaster is typical of Haryana.