Makrana White Marble Jalaram Bapa and Virbai Ma Pair 24in

Jalaram Bapa and Virbai Ma, shown together

Jalaram Bapa (1799–1881) spent his life in Virpur, a small town in the Rajkot district of Gujarat, where he and his wife Virbai Ma kept a sadavrat — an open kitchen that fed any traveller, sadhu or hungry neighbour who reached their door. Devotees rarely picture him alone. The account passed down in Virpur has an old sadhu arrive asking for Virbai herself as alms; when Jalaram agreed and she walked out with him, the sadhu vanished down the road and left behind only his danda and his jholi, both still kept at the Virpur shrine. Carving the two of them on one plinth is how Gujarati households honour that story — the couple, not the man on his own.

The stone

Makrana white marble comes out of the quarries at Makrana in Nagaur district, Rajasthan — the same beds that supplied the Taj Mahal, and still worked today. It is a dense, fine-crystalline calcite marble with a compact, lightly sugary grain and only occasional grey hairline veining, which is why it holds a beard curl, a turban fold and a sari border without the detail crumbling at the edges. Under a soft satin polish the surface settles into a low glow rather than a mirror shine: light travels a short way into the stone and returns, so the faces read warm instead of glassy. The pair is carved for you by the master sculptors we work with in Jaipur, with the faces, hands and drapery finished entirely by hand.

What the carving shows

Jalaram Bapa stands in a wound Kathiawadi turban, a full white beard reaching his chest, a long-sleeved kediyu over a white dhoti. The wooden danda is upright in one hand and the cloth jholi hangs across his shoulder — the two objects that identify him at a glance. A Vaishnav U-shaped tilak sits on his forehead and a tulsi kanthi at his throat, marks of the Ramanandi devotional line he followed. Virbai Ma stands at his side in a fully draped sari with a fitted choli and the pallu drawn over her head, palms joined at the chest, wearing simple ear ornaments and a tulsi mala. A carved scroll band runs along the front face of the shared plinth that carries them both.

Sizing it for your mandir

At 24 inches tall the pair measures about 17 inches across and roughly 10 inches deep, at around 29 kg — a size for a built-in mandir niche or a shelf given over to it, rather than a crowded tabletop corner. Measure the shelf depth first: a shared plinth needs its whole footprint flat on the surface, with nothing overhanging the front edge. Leave a hand's width of clear space on either side so the two figures read as a couple and not a row, and try to keep the top of the turban at or just below eye level when you are seated for aarti. Households wanting a larger darshan piece for a temple room usually move up to 36 inches; 12 inches suits a shallow niche.

Making it yours

Nothing here is a fixed catalogue item — the specification above is a starting point. The same pair can be cut at 12, 18, 36 or 48 inches, in Makrana white marble or in black granite for a darker mandir, and finished in soft satin polish or a full mirror polish. The plinth can carry a carved lotus band in place of the scroll, or an engraved family name and date when the murti is going as a wedding or griha pravesh gift. Send us the niche measurements and a photograph of where it will sit, and we will work the proportions to the space before anything is cut.