Bindi

Traditionally made of sandlewood paste, the red colored dot is worn on the face, usually just above the middle of the brow in Indian culture.

More recently, the bindhi drop (known by many names including pottu and tilakam) is made with the paste of tumeric, a spice very similar in texture to paprika.

Long before Madonna or Gwen Stefani began sporting bindhis for fashion, it was used to signify many things. The first known appearance of the bindhi was in the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. where it appeared on a sculpture of the Buddha.

On men, it is worn for religious devotions and ceremony and is commonly referred to as tilak or urna. For women, the bindhi (or kumkum) may be used to signify marital status. Many women will rub off the bindhi when they are menstruating. For others, the location of the bindhi has a more spiritual reason (third eye) and fits in with meditation and yoga practices.

Derived from Sanskrit bindu, meaning "dot".

The bindi is a small mark applied to the the 6th chakra, aka the agna chakra. In Hindu tradition, the agna -"control"- chakra is the center of one's latent wisdom.

• The central point of this chakra is called "Bindu", and is thought of as the location in which all of the individual's experience is focused in perfect concentration.

• The bindu was also considered the outlet point for "kundalini" energy. It is thought that the bindi blocks this energy from leaving the body, and causes it to be retained and stored locally.

• Bindi signified marital status prior to the trendification of the tradition. Why married women got all the good chakra action while singletons did not is unclear.

The bindi's new MTV-fueled fashion accessory ubiquity and concommitant religious and symbolic devaluation is pandemic. Even in India, bindi have come to be seen as little more than stick-on jewelry.

Modern bindi design has expanded its zone of cosmetic influence, and now includes the eyelids, eyebrows, center part of the hair, navel, etc., and is very likely doing some extremely odd things to the chakras of Very Trendy People if Hindu tradition re:blocking up your chakras with bits of paste and paper had any grounding in terms of reality.

Bindi Before Gwen Stefani

Bindi were traditionally made out of herb paste:

• kumkum: red paste signifying love
• turmeric: yellow paste signifying the intellect
• rice: rice grains were stuck into the paste dot to signify prosperity

The wearing and configuration of the bindi communicated some salient facts about the wearer's life. For example, widows did not wear bindi at all, but other deaths in the family called for a bindi made exclusively from turmeric.

Alternate interpretation of the significance of the red paste from www.shaadi.com: "some scholars have seen the red colour as a symbolism for blood. We are told that in ancient times, in Aryan society, a groom used to apply his blood, on his bride's forehead as recognition of wedlock. The existing practice among Indian women of applying a round shaped red Tilaka called Bindiya or Kumkum could be a survival of this."

Bindi After Gwen Stefani

The traditional DIY paste bindi has been largely supplanted by the "sticker-bindi". Made of felt or thin metal, the sticker bindi is decorated on one side with sequins, gold powder, beads, and glittering stones, with a paper-backed adhesive on the other side.

Of course, Gwen Stefani didn't actually inaugurate the trend in bindi mass manufacture, but she didn't hurt sales any. The bindi-wearing-Westerner look has abated in the past few years, but may be poised for a return with new, higher-quality movies coming out of Bollywood and making their way into the Western cultural collective unconscious as aesthetic influence.