Paitkar Scroll Painting Hazaribagh Jharkhand

Paitkar painting is the traditional scroll-narrative art of the Chitrakar community of Amadubi, Amrapara, and surrounding villages in Jharkhand, practised by painter families who function as mobile priests-performers, unrolling cloth or paper scrolls at village ceremonies to illustrate stories of the afterlife, ancestor veneration, and mythological events while singing explanatory ballads. The Paitkar tradition is closely related to the Patua scroll tradition of West Bengal but developed independently among tribal populations, depicting scenes from Santali and Oraon religious cosmology including the journey of the soul after death, the tiger god Dharamsing, and the village deity Marang Buru in a flat-colour narrative style with bold outlines. Natural mineral pigments and plant extracts were the historical medium, with kadamba tree bark providing a natural blue-grey and mineral ochre providing red and yellow. Contemporary Paitkar artists increasingly use paper and poster colour while maintaining the narrative scroll format. The Jharkhand government promotes Paitkar at national craft fairs and tribal art exhibitions in Delhi and Mumbai.