Vietnam White Marble Lalbaugcha Raja on Festival Mandap Base, 3 ft

Lalbaugcha Raja is the Ganpati of Mumbai's Lalbaug market — a form first installed in 1934 by the traders and fishermen of the old Peru Chawl market, and known ever since as Navasacha Ganpati, the Ganpati of the fulfilled vow. This 36-inch murti carries that form into Vietnam White Marble, quarried in the Da Nang belt of central Vietnam. The stone is a cool, neutral white with a fine crystalline grain, brighter and less creamy than Makrana — which is exactly what a mandap lit by evening lamps needs. Warm light lands on it without turning it yellow. The master sculptors we work with in Jaipur cut the piece in stages. The block is roughed to the seated mass first, then the simhasan with its two flanking lions, then the mandap base with its lotus band and scrolled floral course. Only once the structure holds does the face open up: the curl of the trunk, the eyes, the layered mukut, the beaded haar falling across the chest. All of it is chiselled and rasped by hand, and no machine touches the face, the hands or the drapery. The polish runs through eight progressive grades to a soft satin, stopping short of mirror so the carving reads rather than glares. Four arms, seated with one leg folded in and the other resting down toward the base. The lower left hand holds a modak; the lower right is raised in abhaya, the gesture of blessing and fearlessness. The trunk turns to the deity's left — the Vamamukhi form favoured in household and community worship — and the right tusk is broken, as the iconography requires. A mushak sits at the base, alert and facing the murti. The lions are what make this Lalbaugcha Raja rather than a generic Ganpati: the Lalbaug murti has always been seated on a simhasan, and the throne reads as a mark of kingship. At 36 inches the piece is built for sthapana — a society or building mandap, a courtyard pandal that has to hold a crowd's line of sight, or a large home shrine with room to breathe. Allow close to two feet of clear width for the base and the flanking lions, and about a foot and a half of depth so the throne back is not crowded. Offerings belong at the base: the mandap plinth is carved to take a thali, a garland course and a row of diyas without any of it climbing above the murti. Set it on stone or hardwood, not a folding table. Also cut in Makrana white marble and in black marble, and in sizes from 18 inches up to five feet for a larger pandal. The mandap base can be left plain if you intend to dress it in cloth, or deepened for a fixed garland course. Send us your mandap height on WhatsApp and we will size the throne to it.