The Tree of Life — Jeevan Vriksha in Sanskrit — is one of the oldest and most widespread motifs in human art. It appears in Mesopotamian seals, Egyptian funerary paintings, Indus Valley terracottas, Persian carpets, Norse and Mayan cosmologies. In India it appears across folk and classical traditions: in the carved pillars of Mauryan stupas, on Mughal architectural inlays, in Tantric diagrams, and in the wall paintings of village houses.
The version of the tree on this t-shirt is rendered in Gond tribal art — a folk tradition from central India, whose practitioners were largely unknown outside their region until the 1980s.
Who the Gonds are
The Gonds are one of the largest Adivasi (indigenous) communities in India, with a population concentrated in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. They speak Gondi, a Dravidian language. Their oral traditions, songs and rituals are recorded in their own narrative cycles, distinct from but historically interacting with the Sanskritic traditions of the surrounding regions.
Gond visual art was traditionally produced on the floors and walls of houses, particularly during festivals and life-cycle events. Women painted geometric patterns and figures using rice paste, lime and natural pigments. The wall paintings were called digna; the figural floor paintings, bhittichitra.
Jangarh Singh Shyam
Modern Gond art on paper and canvas is largely traced to a single artist: Jangarh Singh Shyam (1962–2001). Born in the village of Patangarh in Madhya Pradesh, he was identified in his early twenties by the Indian artist Jagdish Swaminathan, who was then setting up the Bharat Bhavan museum in Bhopal. Swaminathan brought Jangarh to Bhopal in 1981 and provided him with materials and a studio.
Jangarh developed a distinctive technique: bold outlines, vibrant colour fills, and his signature pattern — thousands of small dots, dashes and short lines packed inside every shape. His subjects ranged across the Gond pantheon, the natural world, and modern objects. The style became known as Jangarh Kalam — "the Jangarh style" — and was taken up by an entire generation of Gond painters from his extended family and village.
Jangarh's works are held in collections including the Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi, the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, and the Mithila Museum in Niigata, Japan. He died in 2001 while on a residency in Japan.
The Tree of Life in Gond art
The Tree of Life is one of the most-painted motifs in the Gond tradition. The trunk rises through the centre of the composition. Branches spread in symmetrical or near-symmetrical arrangements. Birds, animals and human figures are placed among the leaves — sometimes labelled by name in the painting, sometimes left for the viewer to identify.
The Gond cosmology places trees at the centre of the relation between the living and the dead. Ancestors are believed to reside in particular trees. Many Gond villages have a tree that serves this function, treated with care across generations.
The technique
Gond painting has a recognisable visual grammar. Every surface within the painting is filled with one or more of these patterns:
- Lines of dots
- Short parallel dashes (often called Saaja after a tree)
- Cross-hatching
- Concentric arcs
- Spirals and S-curves
- Fish-scale patterns
These patterns are not decoration. Each represents a specific texture — bark, water, fur, plumage, soil — and is selected by the painter for that purpose. The same patterns recur across different paintings, used like a shared vocabulary.
Recognition
Gond art has received Geographical Indication (GI) protection in India. Several Gond artists have received Padma awards, including Bhajju Shyam (Padma Shri, 2018), Durga Bai Vyam, and Venkat Raman Singh Shyam. The tradition is now taught in dedicated workshops and continues to evolve through the work of artists from the original Jangarh circle and beyond.
How the Anahat Jeevan Vriksha design represents it
The Anahat Jeevan Vriksha t-shirt features a Tree of Life rendered in the Gond tradition: bold outlines, the recognisable dot-and-dash pattern fills, and birds and creatures distributed across the branches. The composition draws on the visual grammar established by Jangarh Singh Shyam and his successors. It is part of Anahat's Originals collection.
Wear Jeevan Vriksha
Gond Tree of Life, hand-illustrated on premium organic cotton. Designed in India by Anahat.
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FAQ
What does Jeevan Vriksha mean?
"Tree of Life" in Sanskrit. It is one of the oldest motifs in human art, present across many cultures.
What is Gond art?
A folk-painting tradition from central India, practised by the Gond Adivasi community. Originally produced on house walls and floors, it moved to paper and canvas from the early 1980s.
Who was Jangarh Singh Shyam?
The Gond artist (1962–2001) who developed the contemporary style of Gond painting on paper and canvas. The style he created is known as Jangarh Kalam.
What is distinctive about Gond technique?
Every painted surface is filled with one of several established patterns — dots, dashes, hatching, arcs, spirals. Each pattern represents a specific texture in nature.
What does the Jeevan Vriksha design depict?
A Gond-style Tree of Life with birds and creatures, illustrated in heritage folk-art technique. It is part of Anahat's Originals collection.