Toran (door garland)
A garland of leaves or flowers, or an embroidered cloth, hung along the top of a doorway as a sign of welcome. In Maharashtra a toran of flowers goes up on the door for Diwali.
Meaning
A toran hangs over a doorway. The simplest, Shahzeen Nasim writes on the Cooper Hewitt museum’s blog, is made “by simply stringing mango leaves”; others are of flowers, and in Gujarat of embroidered cloth whose hanging pennants are stylised mango leaves, symbols of love and fertility. In Gujarati communities a toran is hung over the doorway to the main room as a sign of welcome. Molesworth’s Marathi dictionary of 1857 gives the sense used at festivals: leafy boughs and garlands of flowers hung from a lintel or about it on festive occasions. For Diwali in Maharashtra, Lata Guthe writes in the Marathi daily Prahaar, a toran of flowers is fastened to the door while rangolis are drawn and lamps lit. Torans also go up for weddings, and the embroidered torans of Gujarat come from communities of Saurashtra and Kutch such as the Kathi landowners and the Ahir herders.
Origin and history
In Sanskrit a toraṇa is an arch, an arched doorway or portal, and also the festooned decoration of boughs and garlands over a doorway; Monier-Williams cites both senses from the Mahabharata onwards. The hanging, Cooper Hewitt says, is named after the sacred gateway of Hindu, Jain and Buddhist architecture. In Marathi the word came to mean the lintel itself, and from that the leaves and flowers hung on it.
The embroidered torans of Saurashtra and Kutch are a women’s craft. Women of the Kathi landowning caste were the first to embroider in the Kathipa style, before turning to beadwork more than a century ago. A toran was traditionally made at home rather than bought, and could be part of a bride’s dowry, carried to her husband’s family’s house after the wedding.
Gateway or garland?
The toran of a house is not the same thing as the sacred gateways of Hindu, Jain and Buddhist architecture that share its name. It is a string of leaves, flowers or cloth hung over a door for a festive occasion. Molesworth also records a toran of coconuts strung over the Holi pit for revellers to leap at.
Read next
- Next in Diwali symbolsFireworksFireworks and firecrackers are a later addition to Diwali, a festival of lamps far older than gunpowder in India. Since 2017 India’s courts have restricted them in and around Delhi because of the smog.
- The same shape in Andean and Inca symbolsTumi (ceremonial knife)A ceremonial knife with a half-moon blade from the north coast of ancient Peru. The gold tumis of the Sicán (Lambayeque) culture carry a god on the handle, often identified as Naylamp, the dynasty’s mythical founder. The Tumi de Oro was declared a pre-Columbian symbol of Peru in 1981.
See also
Rangoli, Diya (oil lamp), Lakshmi’s lotus and coins, Lakshmi’s footprints, Akash deep (Diwali lantern), Mithai (sweets).
Sources
- A traditional toran, Shahzeen Nasim, Cooper Hewitt object blog, 11 July 2016, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, blog post
- Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary (1899): toraṇa, Monier Monier-Williams, p. 456, Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries, University of Cologne, toraṇa, p. 456
- Molesworth, A Dictionary, Marathi and English (1857): tōraṇa, J. T. Molesworth, 2nd edition (1857), p. 390, Digital Dictionaries of South Asia, University of Chicago, tōraṇa, p. 390
- आली माझ्या घरी ही दिवाळी (Lata Guthe, Prahaar, 2024), Lata Guthe, Prahaar (Marathi daily, Mumbai), Kolaj weekly, 2 November 2024, Prahaar, paragraph on customs
The same shape elsewhere
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Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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