Phad Painting: Scroll Narratives of the Bhopa Community

Phad painting is a sacred scroll art form associated with the Bhopa (bard-priest) community of eastern Rajasthan, including Dausa district. These large horizontal scrolls, painted on thick cotton cloth using natural mineral pigments, depict the epic stories of folk deities Pabuji and Devnarayan. The painting style uses bold outlines with flat colour fills, showing multiple narrative scenes in horizontal registers. Phad scrolls serve as portable shrines: the Bhopa performs the deity's story at night by lamplight using the scroll as backdrop, singing accompanied by the jantar (a 4-string instrument). The scroll is never rolled in front of the deity's image. Master painter Shree Lal Joshi of Bhilwara received the Padma Shri for reviving this art. Dausa families continue both the painting and performance dimensions of this living tradition.