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I am collecting Indian Heritage and culture related vintage postcards, paintings, prints etc. and exhibited them at several locations across India in various events and also sharing them with school and college children by giving presentations to them on Indian Heritage and Culture with my collections and also documenting puppetry etc. intangible performances.

Sunday 7 April 2019

Ganjifa cards in my collection

These are Ganjifa cards from odisha in my collection. Patachitra artisans from odisha prepared this 120 Ganjia cards set. Ganjifa cards are circular or rectangular and traditionally hand-painted by artisans. Now-a-days Ganjifa is almost on extinction because few people know the traditional ganjifa playing. Ganjifa craft gained in popularity during the times of the Mughals and is a Persian work borrowed from Iran. It is said that Babar and Humayun were its great patrons while Akbar is said to have invited over 150 Ganjifa artists from different parts of the country to embellish his court. Some of the earliest mention of Ganjifa is to be found in Babarnama, Ain-e-Akbari, etc. Some popular Ganjifa cards sets in India are Mughal Ganjifa, Dashavatar Ganjifa, Ramayan Ganjifa, Mysore chad Ganjifa etc. Alongwith these Ganjifa cards set also i have classic book on Indian Ganjifa cards " Ganjifa The Playing Cards of India" written by Rudolf Von Leyden. Art historians and connoisseurs treated this book as reference guide for Ganjifa cards. Sharing some pages of how artisans draw these Ganjifa cards etc. alongwith Ganjifa cards in these photographs.













1 comment:

  1. Hey,
    Any idea on the art of Ganjifa card playing in Rajasthan. Please reply if you do

    ReplyDelete