Design of Rajasthan folk phad paintings

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Ceremonial par paintings are designed in such a way that the various areas of the painting correspond to the several places in the life story of Pabuji (or Devnarayan). Sometimes a scene in the painting is used to illustrate more than one incident in the hero’s epic. Not surprisingly, the central image in the painting is typically a large-size image of Pabuji (or Devnarayan). In Pabuji-ki pars, immediately to the right of the hero deity is his court, consisting of his four principal companions. Somewhat to the left of Pabuji’s court is the court of his brother Buro. Farther left still is the land of Umarkot. At the lefthand edge of the painting is Lanka. To the right of Pabuji’s court is the court of the Lady Deval. At the far right of the painting is Khici’s court.

These areas are not immediately contiguous. There are scenes that fill the spaces between the areas. For example, incidents that happened during Pabuji’s journey from his homeland to Umarkot will be depicted between those two areas on the cloth. Sometimes there are pictures of deities (Ganesh, Sarasvati, Vishnu in various incarnations) along the top of the par. Given the placements of the images in the painting, the par can be conceived not only as a picture of various scenes in a story, but also as a geographical map.

Note that this placement of scenes applies to the full-sized traditional pars. Obviously, those pars of smaller size that are painted for sale to collectors will not contain all the scenes required in a painting that a bhopa intended to use in a ritual ceremony.