a work of art... presents
something new."
-Walter Benjamin
Industrial modernization has allowed for innovations. Production costs can be lowered, out-put raised, and images made for cheap. Which, for the goddess and for darshan images, means they can be made available in large quantity. Posters can be bought at a varitey of places. Companies often select stock images of the goddess to include in calenders given away free. People like the calenders because the paper is generally of higher quality than much of the current types sold. Depending on size, which of course is standardized - including wallet size - the images sell for approximately 1.50 Rs - 12.50 Rs, that's between ten and seventy-five cents.9 Post cards have also become popular since the 1980's, along with lamenated prints, or glazed, framed, and painted ones ready for hanging.10
Store keepers stock only that which sells, and goddess merchadise genrally has a quick reate of turn-over, especially during the holiday seasons: August/December - Feburary/March.11 Venders can be found almost anywhere, but are especially common near glass bazaars, the proximity facilitates cutting and framing - proximity to materials is always buisness-wise. Yet, despite interest, publishers and printers are always looking to cut back on production costs, so lighter weight paper is used, and less color-separations in printing are a few tactics. Also, increasing press runs, or recycling designs with slight augmentations are other methods for lowering costs, which generally fall at the expense of the artist his art work, and all the other people involved in the production process. Of course this also effects the look of the product. Some consumers find the brasher colors "crude," while others might find them "direct and eye-catching."12
| "In recent years of spiriling production costs, labor unrest and industry-side tax disincentives, several publishers have simply gone out of the buisness of production of god posters, among them some well-established firms"13 |
| "[D]epending on local demand, Muslim, Sikh, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, and other religious themes are often displayed alongside national heroes, political personalities, film-stars, photo-realists depictions of babies and pinups." |  |
Despite their proximity to the mundane, as some people would argue brings them down, secularizes, or taints the image of the goddess... this mass-production and wide-spread inhabitance of Ma Devi in everyday life, can equally be said to support her sakti, power. Speaking on the topic of mechanical-reproduction of the goddess posters David Smith writes: "ocassionas for religious Hindus to regard the sacred as enhaced in power, reather than diminished, because of it ubiquitous presence."14