By Ines Keane
Look into an Aranmula kannadi and the face looking back is reflected from the metal itself. No sheet of glass sits in front of it. That is the idea behind this Kerala mirror, and almost everything after it is told differently.
What it is
Wikipedia calls the kannadi a handmade metal-alloy mirror from Aranmula, a small town in Pathanamthitta district, Kerala. It describes it as a first-surface, or front-surface, mirror, unlike silvered glass mirrors, and says the design “eliminates secondary reflections and aberrations typical of back surface mirrors”. That last wording is the article’s own claim and we have not seen it tested. The Outlook Traveller magazine places Aranmula a little over 100 km from Thiruvananthapuram in one sentence and nearly 120 km in another.
What the alloy is
The sources agree on copper and tin and then drift apart. Wikipedia says bronze, a copper and tin alloy, and gives no ratio. The INTACH heritage archive says an alloy of copper and tin, with a frame of pure brass, and no ratio. The Outlook Traveller article says a mixture of copper and tin and that “the preparation is still a secret”. The Incredible India tourism page lists a longer set of elements for the alloy: copper, tin, lead, zinc, phosphorus, iron, silicon, aluminium, nickel, bismuth and antimony. We do not choose between a two-metal and an eleven-element description. One possibility is that the longer list is a list of what a lab might find, and not a recipe. That is our reading only, and the page does not say it.
How it is made, according to three accounts
The Incredible India page describes the lost-wax technique: designs sculpted in wax, covered in clay to form a mould, and molten alloy poured in to take the place of the wax. It says the alloy is heated for about 8 hours and cooled for two to three days. The Outlook Traveller article says a mould is prepared in the shape of the mirror, by a technique “similar to the lost wax process”, and that one mould can yield 70 to 80 mirrors. It does not mention clay or casting by name. The Wikipedia article does not describe a mould at all.
Polishing is where the time estimates part. Wikipedia says the reflective surface is produced by polishing for several days with a paste of rice bran and oil from the seeds of the maroṭṭi tree, Hydnocarpus pentandrus. Outlook Traveller says polishing “may take several weeks to obtain the perfect finish”. The Incredible India page says each mirror is handcrafted, polished and inscribed over about six months. Those are three different spans, and the third includes more steps than the first two. We do not reconcile them.
The Incredible India page adds that how the metal becomes reflective is a secret of the makers, and that local myths mention a herbal powder added to the molten metal. It states the powder only as myth, and so do we.
Who makes it
The Incredible India page says the technique is known to only a few of the makers, passes from father to son, and is carried on in workshops across the ten villages of Aranmula panchayat. It gives no count of workshops. The INTACH archive says the exact process is a closely guarded secret among practising artisans and gives no number of makers. We found no dated census of the makers, and we name none.
The legend of the beginning
All four sources tie the craft to the Aranmula Parthasarathy Temple, and they tell the start differently. Wikipedia says local legend has a royal chief bringing eight families of temple artisans from Tirunelveli district in Tamil Nadu to make mirrors for the temple. The Incredible India page says the temple’s chief priest brought bronze founders from Tirunelveli to make bell-metal vessels, and that they produced an alloy that looked like silver and reflected like a mirror when polished. Outlook Traveller says eight craftsmen and their families were brought to work at the temple, and gives two versions: that they presented the king a crown with a mirror in its decoration, or that they found a reflective alloy while working with metals and the king invited them to stay. The Incredible India page dates the origins to “400 years ago” in its legend section and calls an illustrated mirror “300 year old” in a caption. We repeat both. Nobody gives a primary record.
What the protected name is
Wikipedia and the Outlook Traveller article both say the kannadi received a Geographical Indication in 2005. The INTACH archive says 2004 to 2005. The Wikipedia list of Indian geographical indications gives registration year 2004 to 2005 and application number 3, and lists it as a handicraft from Kerala. Our reading: the Indian GI year is the financial year of the registration, which would explain why one says 2005 and the other 2004 to 2005. That is our inference, and none of the sources says it. A GI entry is a protected name for a product from a place. It does not say who made a particular mirror, or what alloy.
Where one is kept
Wikipedia and the INTACH archive both say the British Museum holds an example, and both give its size as 45 cm.
Dates in order
- About 300 to 400 years ago: the stated origins, according to the Incredible India page, with the two figures as given.
- 2004 to 2005: the registration year in the GI list and the INTACH archive.
- 2005: the GI, according to Wikipedia, Outlook Traveller and the Incredible India page.
Side by side
The sources agree on the place, on copper and tin, on the front-surface design and on the temple link. They differ on how many elements are in the alloy, on whether the process is lost-wax casting, on how long polishing takes, and on the age. Our reading: the mirror is described in broad terms because its makers describe it in broad terms, and that is why four sources contradict each other so easily.
What kind of sources these are
Wikipedia, which anyone can edit; a heritage archive; a magazine article from a travel title; a national tourism page; and a list of GI entries on Wikipedia. We read no maker’s own account, no museum catalogue and no registry entry. The tourism page and the magazine are promotional in tone.
Questions a buyer would ask
What is the frame made of? Is the alloy copper and tin only? Was the face polished by hand, and how long did it take? Where was the piece made, and which workshop made it? We give no price and no care advice, since none of the sources gives either.
What we left out
We left out the wedding and temple uses, because the sources frame them as belief and ritual. We left out the name of any design, any maker, and the sizes of the mirrors offered for sale. We left out prices.
Roam first. Shop later.