|
|
Arts & Carfts - Maharashtra Tourism --- The Offical website of the
Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation, Govt. of India
 |
| Ganjifa and Other Crafts of
Sawantwadi |
 |
| The craft of making the round playing cards, known as ganjifa which was almost
dying four decades ago is being revived today to a great extent. The only
surviving craftsmen of the Chitari community then, Pudnalik Govind Chitari, who
died recently when he was in his eighties, had trained some boys of his
community. Those boys have now grown into young artists who are capable of
executing paintings on ganjifa with considerable skill. |
|
Ganifa tradition of Sawantwadi is almost three hundred years old. However, the
technique of executing round playing cards did not originate from Sawantwadi.
Scholars believe that the game of large size circular playing cards was first
invented by the Malla Kings of Bishnupur (Bengal) in the 8th Century AD.
Jaipur, Orissa and Cuddappa in the South were other places where the round,
plaing cards game was known. In each such place, the playing cards were
executed by local artists. These were different in size and number compared to
the ganjifas of Sawantwadi. Even the iconographical illustrations were
different in each place, such as the Navagraha in the north and the Dashavatara
in the south, including Sawantwadi. But today, except for Sawantwadi, there is
no other place in India in which the craft of making ganifas is being
maintained. |
Rudy Von Leyden, an Austrian scholar, working for Voltas in Bombay
for several years had made an exhaustive collection of round playing cards from
all over India. (This collection is now in the Vienna Museum). He had written
an article in Marg (Vol. III - No 4- 1949) in which he had then state, "there
were still a dozen families eight or ten years ago in Sawantwadi which were
engaged in painting Dashavatara ganjifas with surprising vitality of design".
Sawantwadi palace authorities claim that they have in their daftar a letter
from Nana Phadanvis (Prime Minister of the Peshwas) appreciating the gesture of
the Sawantwadi ruler for sending the excellent ganjifa sets.
|
| Sawantwadi ganifas are based on dashavatara - the ten incarnations of Lord
Vishnu. The incarnations are: Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, Narasimhs, Wamana,
Parshurama, Rama, Krishna, Balarama and Kalaki. |
| A set of dashavatara ganifa consisted of 120 cards. There are ten suits, each
having 12 cards. Two are the 'court cards' of picture cards and the remaining
ten are numerical cards numbered from one to ten: Out of the two picture cards
one illustrates the avatara of Vishnu, the other shows the image of Vazir. The
box made for keeping the set of cards is also specially designed with pictures
and decorative motifs all round. |
| During the last quarter of the 19th Century and the first four
decades of this century, the craft object of Sawantwadi reached several museums
in the West about which very little is known at home. |
| In their monthly exhibition programme the Naprstkovo Museum in Prague
(Czeshoslovakia) mounted a special exhibition in January 1976 on "The Painters
of Sawantwadi". Dozens of articles were displayed. The collection consisted of
toys from turned wood, miniature vessels and kitchen equipment, baskets woven
out of bamboo strips with double walls filled with small stones which served as
rattles, bottles and vases made from coconut shells with turned wooden lids and
legs, a table with a six corner table top, circular cards in a case (ganifa)
and baskets from scented khaskhas grass decorated with applications made of
silver thread with insect wings, filters, textile cuttings and porcupine
pricks. |
This collection of Indian folk arts and crafts in the Naprstkovo Museum was
first initiated by Dr. Otokav Feistmantel, a Czech paleontologist, geologist
and physician who was in India for 8 year in the 1870s. He was connected with
the Geological Survey of India. During his travels in the Indian sub-continent
he had collected some 500 items of Indian folk arts and crafts. He later
presented his collection to the Museum. The technique of lacquer paintings of
Sawantwadi is very sound. The surface of the objects which were to be decorated
with paintings are specially prepared by the chitaries. First, they cover the
object with a layer of stucco (chalk or zinc oxide mixed with gum) which they
would smoothen out. In the case of articles made of bamboo strips they would
first cover the surface with a cotton cloth, sticking it down carefully and
then apply the stucco paste. This way the painters evened out the surface to
create impenetrable foundations on which colours retained their richness and
glow. A coat of lacquer gives the objects a finished look. |
| A note written by Hana Knizkovo of the Naprstkovo Museum of Prague on
Sawantwadi painters concludes: |
| "The art of the Sawantwadi chitaries has vanished long ago. In the year 1888
there worked only two painters; their existence was ruined by the import of
articles from Europe and China. The traditional paintings of the Chitaries
however, retained their character of original home-made creations, the
technological process of which, and the aesthetic norms, had a close relation
to the classical art of the Deccan and South India". |
| Fortunately, the art of lacquer painting of Sawantwadi did not die. It has been
revived without much deterioration. The new generation of chitaries of
Sawantwadi are today engaged in creating all those traditional craft objects,
including ganifas which had once brought fame and glory to the chitaries of
Sawantwadi in the filed of arts and crafts of India. In the seventies of the
last century, a collection of Sawantwadi products were even sent to Glasgow for
the International Exhibition where it was highly praised. Therefore it is
heartening to see that such a great traditional craft of Sawantwadi has come to
life once again with full glow. |
| Great tings never die. |
Prof. Baburao Sadwelkar
|
| Professor of Art; Research Scholar in Art & Art Education, Ex-Director of
Arts, Govt. of Maharashtra |
|
|
|
|
|
|