Session 80 summary
Currently, Sejal together with Bhasha Sahitya Academy is working on cultural documentation. Over the last 10 or more years, Bhasha Academy has been working with the tribal languages, culture and art in India. Sejal belongs to the rathwa community. While researching about her community she came across Mumbai gazetteer which mentioned the rathwa community,it wrote that the rathwa community came from near Madhya Pradesh’s Malwa district’s Alirajpur Rath Vistar to Chota Udaipur in Gujarat. That is why their roots/origin is known as Rath Vistar. Earlier in the state of Alirajpur there were five parts; the first one was Rath Vistar, next Bhavra, Nainpur, Shaptala and Chanpur. In Rath Vistar there were almost 136 villages. Apart from the tribal communities being identified by their place of origin, they are also identifies through their language, culture, customs, rituals and art. So, the tribal community can be recognised through their daily life which is the reason why they come out as more unique. Similarly, the rathwa community is a community which is situated in one place, they have one language (rathwi), and their life is deeply connected with nature. In their language, rathwi, one can find the names of many different festivals in their own language, same for the days of the week. They call Monday- raipurio/kawatio, Tuesday-panwadio, Wednesday-gujri, Thursday-devno, Friday-jhojio, Saturday-thawario and Sunday-ditwar. All these words used for the days of the week come from the small places in Chota Udaipur, e.g. Raipurio is the place where weekly bazaar is set up, and since the bazaar in Raipurio is set up on Monday therefore they call Monday Raipurio in their own language. The same is done for the four directions; north-pavetu, south-revakatu, east- ugdhrum (place where sun rises) and west- doobna. In the rathwa community there are many castes- 56 which are rathwas but their sub-caste is different.
There are many hidden art in the rathwa community one of which is pithora /wall paintings. When mentioning wall paintings people would think of drawings on the walls but in the rathwa community when talking about pithora one does not says that it is drawn-they say that it is writing. Because to them pithora is very important, pithora is considered as their Aradhyadev/ Pithoradev and they establish/invite Pithoradev into their homes when there is any difficulty in the house or in someone’s home the children’s lifespan is short, or they attract various illnesses, people not having good harvest or having some bad luck at home. So, they take Pithoradev’s mannat (vow), offer prayers to him and invite him to enter their homes so that the difficulties that are troubling them can be resolved with the coming of Pithoradev. The pithora painting is written on the main wall of the house and the person writing is called ‘lakhara’. Usually the wall right in front of the entrance door is considered the main wall and the pithora writing is done on that wall. There are many kinds of pithora of Pithoradev; like ‘adha’(incomplete), ‘pura’(complete). In ‘pura’ pithora there are 5 horses with different devs (gods) sitting on top of them and each dev have different significance. The main devs in pithora are Pithoradev and his wife PithoriRani, and then starting from the bottom of pithora there is ‘Gunehdev’ who is the protector of the house, ‘Hajardadev’, ‘Rani Moakhal’/’Rani Kajal’, Pithoradev and Pithorirani. In this way the main five horses are the main devs. The border is called ‘ashad’, the ones below it are the gods who live on land and the ones above the border are the gods living above. The first one is ‘Hudordev’, the peacock is called ‘sonabur, then there is scorpion, deer, sonaber, chandrama, ugto suraj, ramatyar, dhoruwala, mankha goeli, etc. each image carries they own significance.
The entire process starts when a person facing different kinds of difficulties prays to Pithoradev, then when the person receives the reply that he should put a vow and invite the dev into their house then only pithora writing is conducted. The person who helps in taking the vow/mannat is called ‘badwa/badva’ who is knowledgeable about ved and any problem in the village. So the person facing difficulties visits badva and take vow of inviting Pithoradev into their house to dispel difficulties. After that the entire process of writing pithora is started. For that the person cleans the walls of their house. At present the walls are usually cemented but earlier that was not the case, there were no cemented homes, at that time a bamboo ‘khapeda’ was made and it was smeared with a mixture of cow dung and water, for this the cow dung was taken from seven virgin cows. When smearing the cow dung there are rituals of women smearing and at the same time singing, this process is called ‘padu dhorana’. (There are different songs for different stages of pithora.) Then the person who writes pithora- lakhara, is invited. In this team of pithora lakhara there are around 8 to 10 people. The person on whose home the pithora is to be written invites the lakharas by giving them a ‘paudi’, inviting them by saying that they have taken the vow for this or that specific thing which they want to fulfil and for that lakharas should come to their house and write pithora in the house. For inviting lakharas the homeowners give a lot of things to them; like serving them khichdi on palash leaves which is devoid of any spices together with only oil and chilli. Then for drawing lakharas use ‘pichika’, the ‘pichi’ is made of bamboo and the colours used are mainly red, blue, ‘sindoor’, ‘gadi’, white and black. All these colours are used because they were made naturally in the past and at present the colours brought from the market is used after mixing it with the milk of the cow or goat and/or mahua beer (alcohol) to make the colour strong and never diminish. After the lakhara finishes pithora, they leave out one or two things so that the badva can recognize it. This pithora should be completed in one single day and that entire night the badva sings songs of Pithoradev which consists the story of pithora and the stories of other devs in pithora. Then on the next day, together with the homeowner prayers are offered to all the devs in pithora and the badva tells them the dos and don’ts for the completion of mannat; like not sleeping on the khaat, no tadka (splash of oil, mustard seed, chilli) in food. The ‘adha’ pithora is the one where the horses don’t carry any dev riders (usually ‘Pura’ pithora consists of 9 horses). If the person makes a new home then they take pithora into their new home. This transaction also has another ritual where the elements of pithora from the old house is collected in leaves and then when the new house is made these elements are mixed in and then rewritten in the new house.
The story behind pithora goes like this- Pithoradev was brought up by Rani Kajal. Indrash had 7 sisters; Rani Kajal, Rani Makhal, Dharti Rani, Kola Rani, Kalu Rani and Kali Koyal. One day Kalikoyal took her cattle for grazing where she meets Kanduranadev and a kid is born to them, for this Kalikoyal fears his brother and floats away the child in the river. At the same time Ranikajal went to the river to fetch water where she hears a child cry and she brings the child with herself without the knowledge of whose kid it was. To bring up the child Ranikajal uses the tree milk of kada, wad and pipda. When Pithora grows up he is sent for education with a silver pen and he learns a lot. Then he returns to his mother Ranikajal who is the goddess of rain and asks permission to roam the world together with her. Because he was allowed by his mother, and when they reach Kashmir they come across a queen who came to fetch water in the well. Pithora break’s the queen’s earthen pot and in return she curses him that his maternal uncle would eat his share/steal his share of property and he had no parents. After returning home he did realise that he indeed didn’t have any parents. In desperation he started searching for his uncle both in heaven and earth but still couldn’t find him. The uncle was hiding in ‘ukhoda’ which is the place where the women collect all the cow dung, there Pithora is able to catch him and tells him about the queen’s curse and demands for his share to which his uncle replies that he would give Pithora his property. They had to first search for his father, for this Indraj says that he will call for an assembly of gods and there the nephew can search for his father, in that assembly Kandurana was also present. At first glance Pithora was able to recognize Kandurana/Kanduraja as his father and both of Pithora’s parents were revealed and he is married off to Pithori. So, when taking the vow of pithora and the images drawn in the main wall is said to be the Pithora and Pthori’s groom’s bridal entourage which gives an idea that the gods are protecting the house. When the year ends and the new year begins the eldest member of the family gets up early and offer prayers to the gods.
This symbolization of the rathwa community’s symbol of belief is being affected by the influence of outsiders like different communities or institutes. They don’t really understand the whole story of the culture and display or present them to the outside in that incomplete or misunderstood version which hurts the sentiments of the community. Recently the students of JD Institute of Fashion Technology put the elements of different gods of Pithora on fashionable clothes. It doesn’t makes any sense that on one hand a community is devoted and strong believers of Pithora and offer prayers, in other words it holds a ritualistic and religious importance in the community and on the other hand someone is adding them to fashion and launching them in fashion shows. This, in some way or the other changes the importance that the tribal community holds in the society and that activity is like an attack on the identity of the tribal community. One of the young lakharas found the video of JD Institute which he shared with Sejal and talked about how it greatly affects their identity crisis and hurt their belief. Sejal probed deeper into this issue and came to know that the students did the research during covid which made her question how that can happen because everything was under lockdown at that time. Then she downloaded all the pictures and talked with Bhasha’s director Dr. Madan after which she realised that something must be done in response to that because if they don’t stand up now then it will keep on happening in the future. Then she did an extensive research on which tribal forms are used in fashion, there she came across warli which was modified and then used- they don’t use the main part but only the borders. After doing the extensive study she decided that it was right to give applications to all the places where Pithora was made to uphold the respect of Pithora and if they cannot do so then wipe is off/ remove it. The community also played an important role in all that, Sejal visited the community in one of their regular meetings and told them about the issue of Pithoradev being put on fashionable clothes and they showed a lot of anger stating how anyone can do that. Even the lakharas did a meeting on it and immediately sent an application to JD Institute and the Bhasha Academy prepared a notice and sent it to the institute. In this way they faced/ tackled this issue.
About the Speaker
Sejal Rathwa
She is the Co-ordinator of Cultural Documentation in Basha Research and Publication Center Tejgadh, Chhota Udaipur, Gujarat. The Pithora paintings are done by the Rathwa, Bhil, Nayak and Tadi tribes of Gujarat, parts of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The origin of these paintings goes back a few thousand years, arising from the cave paintings. These paintings speak of the social, cultural and mythological life and beliefs of the tribals.
