SGCool Label Text: Despite the utilitarian nature of the wooden box,made from cengal wood, some thought and art have been invested in its production. The cover is hinged and is inlaid with small tiles of bone. Repeated interlocking floral trellis design have been carved onto its surfaces. It is also decorated with lower and upper borders of a repeated stylised sunflower motif. This unending, recurrent motif is popularly known as awan larat. The term roughly translates as ‘meandering clouds’ and is quite appropriate for the lofty subjects it adheres to. This design is usually represented in the form of a spiral which emanates from a fixed centre and then moves progressively outwards as it expands. The significance of the spiral lies in the fact that it represents the unending ebb and flow of life itself. In the course of its evolution during both the Hindu-Buddhist and Islamic eras, the awan larat design was invested with a number of deeper theological and philosophical meanings. The dramatic motion outwards and its subsequent collapse back to the centre came to symbolize the unending process of creation, regeneration, degeneration and reunification back to the central point of origin of the cosmos (Farish Noor 2003, 143).
