It is the season of festivals. Durga Puja, Dusshehra , Halloween and the anticipation of Diwali, our festival of Lights. These celebrations are sort of a declaration marking the beginning of winter; this time however, the bright sun shines on vehemently through the smoke laden atmosphere and continues to keep the days warm, not quite giving way to winter, yet.

Festivals that transition yet carry on over centuries are harbingers of history and tradition, glimpses into the past. Much like aboriginal or folk arts that are carried forward from generation to generation through millennia. Indigenous arts are the roots of any culture. The further back we can search the more we discover, ancient remnants of archaic folk tradition. The same holds true for most for most cultures.

The Bhimbetka rock shelters in Madhya Pradesh are among the oldest specimens of human habitats. These exhibit the earliest traces of human life on the Indian subcontinent, a heritage site that consists of seven hills and over 750 rock shelters, some that were inhabited more than 100,000 years ago. These rock shelters feature prehistoric cave paintings of which the oldest date back to over 10,000 years, depicting themes such as animals, dancing and hunting. Creating art, stories and documentation seem inherent traits of the earliest of our ancient predecessors.

Guruprasad Dey delves into a study of the visual imagery of the Irula tribes of Nilgiri. Irulas are one of the oldest tribes in Southern India who share the Nilgiri mountain-land with other primitive and pristine tribal groups. There is no evidence of their paintings but they are extraordinarily rich with their traditional forms of song and dance. It is not yet entirely true that there is not at all any visual representational tradition.

Justin & Alka Imam have been working on the archaeological& cultural heritage and the traditional arts of Hazaribagh Sohrai (harvest) and Khovar (marriage) related wall murals and derivative paintings for over three decades.

The Hazaribagh and adjoining Chatra district have revealed nearly 18 prehistoric rock-art sites dated to the Mesol-Chalcolithic period (10,000 B.C) in the Sati, Maudhi and Satpahar hills in the North Karanpura valley, drained by the river Damodar The village paintings are considered auspicious symbols related to fertility and prosperity being painted on the walls. There are two major stylistic divisions based on the marriage and harvest seasons

Manmeet Walia concerns with the old traditional art form of Nathdwara painting, having its roots in miniature paintings that goback to 17th century, these portray various stories/ rituals followed at the temples, compositions that originally refer to mythological stories of Nathdwara, often depicting Krishna’s childhood; they traditionally served as a back drop to the figurine of the deity. Lina

Vincent conducts an interview with Avinash Karn, a contemporary artist of the Madhubani tradition. She articulates the altercations faced by vernacular artists to establish themselves on the same plane as contemporary artists working more modern styles/themes /genres. H.A. Anil Kumar shares his study of the attenuation of Ganjifa art….an art form illustrated on playing cardsof ancient India, usually of circularshape.An artistic practice that has been an evolving pre-modern representational visual language, which has been subject to colonization of a past by the present.

Hoping this issue takes our readers back in time and connects them to our artistic past, which I feel is a common heritage for humanity.

Happy Reading
Siddhartha Tagore