Project Kolam

Ancient Tamil Floor Art Meets Blockchain Permanence

Mylapore Kolam Festival - Aerial view of colorful kolam patterns

Every year there are kolam competitions conducted in Mylapore for Pongal. The above picture is from the 2024 kolam competition.

What is Kolam?

Kolam is a traditional floor art practiced by Tamil people for several centuries. It is based on dots and lines where you draw continuous looping lines around a grid of dots, creating intricate geometric patterns. In a nutshell: continuous line patterns around dots.

Kolam has many varieties. This project on Shape focuses on Pulli Kolam which emphasizes dots, lines, and continuous loops creating symmetrical designs.

The kolam starts with the 3 dot kolam. As kolam is symmetrical and starts with an odd number, the up and down dots reduce to the next odd number, forming a diamond grid:

3 dot: 1-3-15 dot: 1-3-5-3-17 dot: 1-3-5-7-5-3-113 dot: 1-3-5-7-9-11-13-11-9-7-5-3-1
Woman drawing kolam at Mylapore Kolam Festival

Drawing Kolam at Mylapore Festival

Traditional pulli kolam being drawn at Mylapore Festival

Traditional Pulli Kolam

Example Kolam Patterns

Level 1
3 dot Kolam
1 unique pattern
Level 2
5 dot Kolam
12 unique patterns
Level 5
11 dot Kolam
32.5M unique patterns

16 Pattern Types

The patterns are classified into 16 types in general. Each kolam can only use these patterns.

Unique Kolams by Level

Level 1 (3 dots)1
Level 2 (5 dots)12
Level 3 (7 dots)432
Level 4 (9 dots)61,263
Level 5 (11 dots)32,583,140
Level 6 (13 dots)65.5 Billion
Level 7 (15 dots)498 Trillion
Level 8 (17 dots)14.3 Quintillion
Level 9 (19 dots)1.55 Septillion
Level 10 (21 dots)635 Octillion
Level 11 (23 dots)982 Nonillion
Level 12 (25 dots)18.8 Undecillion
100%
On Chain

Fully On Chain NFTs

The NFTs are 100% on chain. The entire artwork lives on the blockchain, ensuring your kolam is permanent and cannot be lost or taken down.

1 Hour
Cooldown for One Loop Kolams

Deterministic Pattern ID

KL3-14-4-7a1370b8691e4f5a6b8c9d0e
KL3 = Kolam Level 3 (7 dots)
14 = Uses 14 of 16 pattern types
4 = Number of loops
7a1370b8... = Unique 26-char hash

Mission & Objective

The objective of this project is to create awareness about Kolam and this tradition.

With the increase in apartments and life getting busy, the art of Kolam is gradually diminishing. This project aims to rekindle the passion for Kolam and become the main reference for kolam patterns.

Through content creation and blockchain permanence, Project Kolam will become the top site when it comes to kolam, preserving Tamil heritage for future generations.

Supporting Ethereum

100% of mint funds go to Protocol Guild, the org that funds Ethereum core developers.

Shape is built on Ethereum and pledges 1% of $SHAPE to Protocol Guild. We deploy on Shape and want to support Protocol Guild in our own way.

0.0001 ETHPer level → Protocol Guild
Multisig:
0x700fccD433E878F1AF9B64A433Cb2E09f5226CE8
Social Channels
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Contract
0xbFcdEB33cf38eB8b0b5A201b6c4b5b1d8329b5D3