About Mantra
THE TRUE ESSENCE OF MANTRA
Mantra represents a word or sound that is repeated to aid in concentration or meditation. The true power of a Mantra lies in the people who wholeheartedly believe in its message and magic. The reverberations as the words are uttered or even thought of, completely engulfs the person, and those around them with positive vibrations that elevates the mind, body, and soul.
We believe in the magic of Mantra and vouch for the abundant positivity that follows every handcrafted artefacts from our collection. Each piece is crafted from premium and ethically sourced metals like brass, bronze, copper, and Panchaloka. The craftsmen hail from a long lineage of traditional artisans, and use techniques that have been zealously guarded and passed down as a community secret from ages past. Through them, we are able to deliver finely crafted metal art forms from all over India.
We don’t make products. We make finely crafted concepts and ideas that become family heirlooms to be passed down for generations to come. There is an immense sense of pride and achievement in every single product that has been made with utmost love, care and attention.
THE FOUNDING PRINCIPLES
The vision for creating Mantra came to light during a moment of deep spiritual awakening of its founder Pankaj Bhandari. In addition to being an expert in finance and business economics, he had a deep love for Indian spirituality and traditions, especially the temples. So when he started a plating firm, it was no surprise that he used his newfound expertise to immortalise Indian temples in 24kt Gold Plating, restoring them to their former glory.
While working closely with artisans on temple projects, his Chief Stapathi lamented about the younger men moving to more lucrative jobs, due to low patronage for the arts. Fearing that traditional metal work would slowly go extinct by way of the silver and gold smiths, he formulated a business idea that would preserve our rich artistic heritage, and ensure year round work for the artisans. Thus was born Mantra Gold Coatings that started out with a handful of artisans, but has now grown to a collaboration of over 200 artisans.
The raw pieces are curated from all over India and are treated to a variety of finishes at Mantra. The truly surprising and welcome outcome of this initiative are the thousands of patrons all over the world who choose to buy handcrafted Mantra over commercial every day!
ARTISANS - THE SOUL OF MANTRA
India is a land of magnificent ancient art involving magical myths and mysteries. The art of Indian metal sculpting is very precise and dates back to the 3rd century BC. The royal kingdoms like the Cholas, Pallavas, and the Vijayanagara Kings were patrons of this art and gifted the sculptures in trade partnerships with other civilizations.
Although much of the scientific knowledge of this ancient art has been lost over time, some of it still survives across various parts of India today, thanks to a handful of close-knit artisan communities. At Mantra, we preserve and transform this art by adding on top of it the finest examples of gold, brass, bronze, and Panchaloga.
Our Mantra artisans hail from traditional craftsmen families with a long lineage extending back for centuries. They work with secret techniques handed down to them over past generations. All of our
metal figurines are made in India, by Indians, and each piece carries with it a part of the Artisan’s soul, and in turn, the soul of India.
metal figurines are made in India, by Indians, and each piece carries with it a part of the Artisan’s soul, and in turn, the soul of India.
MANTRA’S FOUNDER
Pankaj Bhandari is a budding entrepreneur from the late 1990s, who has an innate capacity to link the old with the new. For Pankaj, temple architecture was a love at first sight, and he didn’t hesitate to immerse into transforming temple structures into gold with the launch of his first venture Smart Creations, in 1998. What started off as a tentative business model in 1998, now stands as a sprawling factory whose production spans across multiple showrooms in India and users from all over the world.
Almost two decades later, Mantra Gold coatings was created as a flagship retail brand of Smart Creations in 2014. Pankaj’s takeaway from his MBA at ISB was that a retail business model relies on consistent cash flows, impacting all the stakeholders, the most important of which for Pankaj are the Indian Artisans. The Artisans who were usually employed for the golden transformation of temple projects for a temporary period would now have year-round work and cash flow. Mantra, under Pankaj’s influence, is steadily expanding the opportunities for Indian artisans and their crafts.
At Stanford University, he studied the subtle art of scaling up businesses, which he applied on Mantra Gold Coatings. His plans for Mantra are to expand the scope of offers to include more Indian artisans and their handicrafts and take these unique art pieces to the world. Through Gold Plating, he hopes to restore the Golden Glory of the Swarnabhoomi, as India was once called in the ancient days.
Pankaj’s calling to preserve our rich culture and simultaneously bring them to every home has grown into a multifaceted venture through the years. He has since expanded the verticals to also include industrial metal plating, earning many projects from both Government agencies and prominent industrial brands.
