Long before cinema screens or printed books brought stories to life, India had scrolls, vividly painted, carefully crafted, and carried village to village by storytellers who sang as they revealed each scene. This was Pattachitra, an ancient art form whose name, taken from Sanskrit, translates simply as “cloth painting” (patta meaning cloth, chitra meaning picture). But what it offered was more than decoration; it was a moving archive of myths, morals, and memory.

A storytelling tradition woven through time

The origins of Pattachitra stretch back over two thousand years, possibly as far as the Mauryan period in the third century BCE. Though the historical trail is fragmented, early Sanskrit texts such as the Brahma Vaivarta Purana mention travelling painters who carried stories across regions, not in books, but painted onto cloth or palm leaves.

These artists were known as ‘Patuas’ or ‘Chitrakars’. They were not just painters but narrators, performers, and social commentators. Armed with long scrolls stitched together from fabric panels, they journeyed from village to village, unrolling each one as they sang a corresponding verse. The result was a performance where word and image moved together, each frame a scene, and each verse a voice.

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