At village level myths and legends circulated through efforts of professional storytellers called sutras who travelled a lot with painted paper scrolls. Charana bard community of Banaras are tradition singers and story-tellers. The Malas of south India were the story-tellers. A group of mendicant story tellers Santhal Pargana and scroll painters have kept alive a type of art which is called pata paintings. Its enactment is both educative as well as entertaining and has been responsible for the interest that has been kept alive among different communities who are otherwise unable to read and write.
It is a living and practising art. Earlier, mendicant story tellers with a group of entertainers, would borrow the work of scroll painters and give shows in villages at a good location. The paintings would be presented in the form of a show, like today’s flip chart presentation, and the story teller would relate an interesting tale. The shows were popular and educative. They kept alive the pata style of paintings. Village people, with limited avenues of entertainment, were always waiting for the arrival of the story teller and his troupe.
The Pata style is old but has not received adequate recognition. With the advent of economic changes the story tellers have left and pata artists, though existing, have limited circulation.
Gadosa
Garodas hailed from northern Gujarat and Rajasthan. They travelled from village to village with their painted paper scrolls and narrated local folklore and popular legends. Painted scroll were usually divided into 19 compartments by thick, black horizontal lines. The style of painting in scrolls was marked by use of bright colours and thick outlining of figures in black.
The first panel shows a shrine having a full vase topped by a coconut, followed by the second panel with two horse riders in profile with anthropomorphic figures of the sun and the moon nearby. The scroll ends with panel depicting the punishment in hell.
The scroll continues with depicting of popular popular deities, for example Krishna, Ganesha, Siva, Goddess Lakshmi and scenes from local legends, like the story of Dana Bhagat, Raja Harishchandra, Krishna legends and local variations of Mahabharata and Ramayana.
Nakkashi
Traditional art referred to as nakkashi is spread over in Telengana in Andhra Pradesh. Story tellers go to nakkash and get patt painted. Drawing and painting are their ancestral occupation of nakkash. They maintain a kind of interest in art forms alive on folk level. Mythological paintings created by them were used for story telling. Stories are of origin of local caste, rather than local version of Indian Epics, appear to predominate in narrative illustrations of Andhra Pradesh. They paint beautiful themes in vigorous and sensitive colours to attract attention of the common village folk. Story tellers move from village to village and relate tales.
Telangana painting tradition culturally links its caste of professional painters with other caste who perform narratives for an audience of another social background. For example scrolls illustrating legends from Markandeya Puran and the origin of weaver’s caste, are made on request for the Konapuli caste story telling community. They serves the Padmasalis, who are weavers. Scrolls illustrating Ramayana are made for the Arthapodu community who relate the story of Rama to the Mangali caste
Theme and content of the scroll is given by some community, for which a meeting with an audience is arranged to discuss prevailing myths and legends. Colours mostly were prepared earlier by the artist himself. The patt paintings take a year or so to be completed. A peculiarity of this is the profuse use of geru or brick colour.
A story on patts is usually in 45 or 50 parts. Painted scrolls are used as visuals to illustrate a story sequence. Performers hang their scroll between two poles or against a wall and unroll it such that the image shown coincides with the narration. Story telling sessions often carried on every night for a full week. Traditional drum, ghungrus(–) and harmonium players of their caste accompanied story teller. Performance begins with an invocation to Lord Ganesha. the show being accompanied by a musical performance.
Maharashtra Chitrakathi Paintings
Chitrakathi are a community of migrating story tellers found all over Maharashra and some parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
The theme of Chitrakathi paintings range from stories belonging to local versions of the well known epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata; stories of Babhruvahana, one of the son of Arjuna, of Harishchandra, of the Ashvamedha of Yudhisthira, of Lava and Kusha, the sons of Sita, etc. Use of brownish tone of stone colour gives a remarkable effect. Figures in paintings were generally stylised.
They made a series of single sheets of paintings. All paintings belonging to one story were kept in a bundle called pothi. These paintings were done on paper in horizontal format. About 20 or more single paintings illustrated one legend or story. A pair of paintings, pasted back to back against each other with a stick in the centre for easy handling. They were shown to the audience while the narrator would tell the story.
Although there are variations of style depending on the region they came from for example Pinguli, Sawantwadi, etc. the prominent use of brownish tones of the mineral colours is remarkable.
Rajasthan Phad
Traditional Phad painting is the popular style patronised by the rural folk of Rajasthan. Phad scrolls generally depict their local heroes who are worshipped in rural Rajasthan. It depicts the glory of their folk heads like Devnarayanj, Pabuji and Ramdevaji, who are greatly revered and worshipped all through rural Rajasthan as folk deities. The Phad paintings are scattered in Bhilwara region concentrated in Shahpura, jaipur and Chittorgarh.
Painted phads are like a mobile shrine They are traditional painting They are made by phopa, the priest, who starts it on an auspicious day with ritual offering to Saraswati, the goddess of learning.
The Phad painters always prefer the cloth of khadi or reja, the hand spun and hand woven coarse cloth as the canvas for their rectangular scroll paintings An entire scroll would have small sectional sequences of narration, running horizontally on both side.
First rough sketches are made. When this rough sketch is ready with clear divisions of the composition into sections and sub sections, he fills up the areas with various colours. In visual content of Phad it is necessary to corelate with the narrative comment of the folk epic song. Bhopa would sing and his wife with the help of lighted lamp would highlight the sequence on the Phad referred to in song.
The painters prepare their own colours from powdered earthen colours, water, gum and indigo . He generally uses orange for limbs and bare human figures, yellow for the ornaments and patterns of clothes, blue for water and green for the trees. And the predominant red is generally used in the dresses of the principal characters. He uses one colour at a time and fills up all the areas to be covered with that one.
Jadupata
Santhal represent the tribal traditions amongst the rural painters chitrakaras and Jadupatuas of eastern India. The Santal’s held jadupatas in awe because they came to be known not merely as patuas but jadupatuas (magic painters). Painters are invariably male. They go village to village, inhabited by Santhal with pictures on long scroll of paper, painted with bazaar colours. They show these paintings and tell stories.
Chashudana is one theme of these painters that depicts a dead person enjoying earthly comforts in the world hereafter. The practice gradually ceased to be so exclusively funeral, the subject list was expanded to include pleasant scenes from life, feasting, music and dancing, illustration of folklore and Santhal vision of Hindu religious legends. The Baghut Bonga depicts tiger God of Santhal. Dongay dance was performed by the entire village community after hunt. Bow and arrow are used to promote fertility symbols of the soil.
They use limited colours and material in their paintings. They have common style of painting which was determine by long established traditions.
Santhal Pata
Bengal scroll paintings, a narrative pictorial tradition disseminates a rich cultural heritage of sacred and secular stories to village people throughout till present day. Tradition which is apparently ancient, has flourished in many district of Bengal which includes Midnapur, Bankura, Birbhumi, Murshidabad, Santhall Pargana, Hoogly and Burdwan.
The most characteristic artifact of the tradition is the vertical scroll known as jarano pata means rolled paintings which functions as a visual prop in story telling The scrolls illustrate mythological stories in Bengali version of the epics, Ranayana, Mahabharata and secular narratives of social, political or historical interest.
Bengal patua or chitrakars entertaining the rural audience with their jarono pats. Jarano pats are painted usually on paper of the cheapest variety, average twelve to fifteen feet in length and are one or two feet wide The paintings on the scroll are arranged in rectangular panels by one below other. As the scroll is gradually unfolded, the patua, sings explanatory ditties of which he is often the composer.