A Topological Approach to Creating Any Pulli Kolam, an Artform from South India

摘要

Pulli kolam is a ubiquitous art form in south India. It involves drawing aline looped around a collection of dots (pullis) place on a plane such thatthree mandatory rules are followed: all line orbits should be closed, all dotsare encircled and no two lines can overlap over a finite length. Themathematical foundation for this art form has attracted attention over theyears. In this work, we propose a simple 5-step topological method by which onecan systematically draw all possible kolams for any number of dots N arrangedin any spatial configuration on a surface.