Wood-crafts of Tamil Nadu
In Tamil Nadu there are a number of places noted for wood craft. Virudunagar is famous for the traditional style. It has now started making articles for household use. Devakottai and Karaikkudi make traditional panels in different sizes. Small shrines finely carved with wood known as kavadi have exquisite designs and serve as votive offerings to the deity that devotees carry on their heads as they go singing or chanting. Panels from some of these old kavadis are detached and are now used as wall decorations. Nagercoil and Suchindram have traditional carvers who also make figures.
Madurai is famous for its rosewood carvings. The style is marked by its bold forms, the details being minutely and painstakingly worked out. Tables with the top covered with floral motifs or lovely parrots or panels with epic scenes are the most outstanding examples of this type of craft.