Awakening the Scroll

ORAL TRADITIONS AND LIVING EPIC OF PABUJI KI PHAD

- Tanusha Nagrath

Amid the sands of Rajasthan, where the horizon bleeds into folk, culture and memory, there lives a story sung more often than written, remembered more vividly than recorded. Pabuji ki Phad is not merely art; it is a breathing epic, unfurled not only on cloth but also carved within the hearts of those who carry it.

Passed down across generations of priests and artisan painters, this tradition is one of India's most intricate coalesces of oral narration and visual symbolism. Every inch of the Phad, a scroll sometimes spanning fifteen feet, is alive with reverence, mythology, and the lived experiences of pastoral communities who believe in the deity they sing into being.

THE ROOTED ORIGINS

The genesis of the Phad traces back to the 14th century, nestled in the cultural soil of Shahpura, Mewar. There, among the Chhipa community of textile painters, emerged a practice that was as spiritual as it was artistic. The form was never just a painting; it was a sacred object; commissioned for ritual, revered in ceremony, and meant to travel from village to village in the service of devotion.

The central figure, Pabuji, is no ordinary hero. Born in the village of Kolu, his legend preserved in thousands of orally transmitted lines known as Vata Pabujiri depicts him as a divine protector of cattle, a warrior who made the ultimate sacrifice, and a guardian to his people. For many in the desert regions, from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur, he is less myth and more ancestor.