Custom Made Neem Karoli Baba Marble Murti

Neem Karoli Baba murtis — Maharajji, and the blanket

People who ask for a Neem Karoli Baba murti rarely use his full name. He is Maharajji at home, Neeb Karori Baba in the villages near Farrukhabad the name comes from, and Kainchi Wale Baba to the families who drive up from the plains to the ashram in the Kumaon hills. What they picture is always the same: a heavy-set old man wrapped in a chequered blanket, sitting cross-legged on a wooden bench, laughing.

That blanket is why this collection is built the way it is. Most murtis are identified by an attribute you can carve — a vel, a flute, a jholi and danda. Maharajji is identified by a textile, and by a face thousands of people have seen in photographs. He died in 1973, well inside living memory, and the households commissioning him are often two generations of the same family who have kept the same picture on the same wall. Every piece here is carved to order by the master sculptors we work with in Jaipur.

The forms carved here

The ashirwad form is where most homes begin — seated cross-legged, right hand raised palm-out in blessing. The 24in hand-painted ashirwad murti is the commonest ask, and the 24in plain white version is the same form for a household that wants the whole piece in one stone.

The quiet darshan form rests both hands open in the lap, which reads calmer on a shelf where he sits among other murtis — an 18in hand-painted piece for a mandir cabinet, a 36in plain marble one for a hall.

The takhat pieces carve the low wooden bench he sat on as part of the same block — a 30in hand-painted and a 48in plain marble. It is the form devotees who have read the accounts recognise fastest, because the bench is in almost every story.

Three forms are more particular. The 36in Kainchi Dham darshan murti is the garlanded sanctum composition on a low singhasan. The 21in murti with charan padukas carves his sandals on the step below him. And the blanket form draws the blanket up over his head so only the face shows — 15in hand-painted or 18in plain.

For a small shelf, a desk or a car, the cast marble-dust pieces run smallest: 9in ashirwad, 12in on the takhat, and a 6in murti that travels in hand luggage.

Hand-painted or plain white — the blanket is the decision

On most collections the finish is a matter of taste. Here it decides how quickly the murti is recognised, because the chequered blanket is the identity.

Hand-painted is what most ghar mandirs choose. The check is painted in blue, rust and navy over the white stone, the dhoti left white, the face and hands in natural tones — so the piece reads as Maharajji from across a room, the way the photograph on the wall does. The painting is applied after carving, to the finished piece.

Plain white marble keeps everything in one stone, and it is not a compromise. The sculptors work the check into the drapery in shallow relief, with a fringed edge along the blanket, so the weave still reads without a drop of colour — in raking light it is arguably the finer piece of carving. It is what most temple, ashram and gallery installations choose; the 48in takhat murti shows it clearest.

Both are offered in every principal form on this page, deliberately, so you never have to choose between the finish you want and the form you want.

Telling a Neem Karoli Baba murti from a Sai Baba one

Worth knowing before you buy anywhere, because it goes wrong often — pieces are listed online under his name that are plainly a different sant altogether.

Four things settle it. Maharajji is bald and bare-headed: no turban, no cloth over the head. His beard is short and trimmed, grey-white, with a moustache. He wears a chequered blanket over both shoulders and around the torso, over a plain white dhoti. And he is heavy-set — broad, solid, with a full stomach.

Set that against the two figures he is most often confused with. Sai Baba of Shirdi wears a kafni robe with a head cloth knotted over the left shoulder, and sits with his right leg crossed over the left knee. Jalaram Bapa wears a wound Kathiawadi turban and a long white beard to the chest. Neither is bald and bare-headed, and neither is wrapped in a blanket.

The build is what most often gets lost. Maharajji was not a lean ascetic, and a thin figure — however well carved — is not him.

Maharajji and Hanuman

He is inseparable from Hanuman. He built or restored over a hundred Hanuman temples, the ashram at Kainchi Dham is built around one, and devotees who came to him were as often sent to the Hanuman Chalisa as given an instruction of their own.

So the pairing is a real commission rather than a novelty. Two pieces here carve both figures on one shared plinth — Hanuman standing behind with palms folded and the gada at his side, Maharajji seated in front — a 30in hand-painted piece for a home mandir, and a 60in plain marble one at the scale a courtyard or an ashram hall takes. Families installing him beside a Hanuman murti they already own usually take a seated form and match the height to what is there.

Choosing the stone

Makrana white marble is the default and the base for every hand-painted piece — the warm temple white of the Taj Mahal, dense enough to hold the fine drapery the blanket needs.

Cast marble dust is what makes the small sizes affordable, and it takes paint well; it is the right choice at 6–12 inches and for anything that has to travel light.

Black granite reads completely differently — matte, contemporary, the check catching in relief rather than colour. It suits a study, a meditation room or a gallery setting more than a traditional mandir. See the 24in darshan murti.

Dholpur pink sandstone is warm, matte and weather-tolerant, which makes it the one to choose for a courtyard, a garden or an open verandah — the 30in ashirwad piece is carved for exactly that.

Size and placement

Pieces here run 6 to 60 inches, and the small end matters more for Maharajji than for most subjects — he is a murti people keep close rather than at a distance. 6–15 inches sits on a pooja shelf or a desk. 18–24 inches suits a mandir cabinet or a console, and is where most homes land. 30–36 inches wants a hall, a landing or a dedicated niche. 48–60 inches is ashram, temple and institutional scale.

Depth catches people out more often than height — a seated figure on a takhat is deeper than it looks in a photograph. Send a picture of the space and the shelf depth and we will suggest a size that actually fits.

Caring for it

Dry-dust with a soft cloth. For marble, an occasional wipe with a barely damp cloth and nothing more — no acidic cleaners, no vinegar, no lemon, all of which etch the surface permanently. Hand-painted pieces want the dry cloth only, and no solvents near the painted areas. Sandstone kept outdoors will weather and warm in tone over the years, which most people come to prefer; a breathable stone sealer slows it if you would rather it did not.

Make it yours

The pieces here are starting points, not a fixed catalogue. If one is close but not quite — a different size, another stone, painted instead of plain, the takhat instead of the plinth — that is a normal commission and the sculptors will adapt it.

Bringing something else entirely is just as welcome. Families send us a photograph they have kept for years, the murti from their own ashram, or a composition nobody on this page has carved yet. Some pieces are already carved and waiting with the sculptors we work with, in which case there is no carving wait at all and we send you photographs of the actual piece; a commission is carved for you and takes eight to twelve weeks, depending on size, stone and detail.

Tell us what you have in mind on WhatsApp and we will tell you honestly which of the two you are looking at.