Vintage Indian Kavad Narrative Shrine Of Rajasthan. Hindu Traveling Theatre.

A Vintage Indian Kavad, a narrative shrine from Rajasthan, handcrafted and hand painted in vibrant colours.

It gets its name from the Rajasthani word Kivad which means door.

The box resembles a small temple with overlapping doors on which pictures depicting the story of Hindu mythology are painted so that the narrator can reveal them as the story progresses. Each door leads to other secret doors or openings ending with the innermost compartment, which houses three idols of the presiding deities of the kaavad.

Kaavad has a rich 500-year-old tradition of oral storytelling from Rajasthan, but according to legend, the story of Kaavad begins with one of the most popular stories in Indian folklore. This folklore is that of the devoted son Shravan Kumar, who carried his blind parents to a temple. Unfortunately, during this journey, King Dasratha accidentally shot him with a bow and arrow. According to local legend, the dying boy told King Dasratha, “I will not be able to take my parents to the temple anymore. Now you will have to carry the temple to my parents.” And thus the first Kaavad, or mobile temple, came into being.

They became very popular in medieval India when due to an attack by invaders, the local temples were destroyed. The kaavadiya bhat, a community of storytellers, traveled everywhere with these hand-painted story boxes and narrated stories from the Ramayana, Mahabharata and other epics to ordinary and illiterate villagers. In this way, the common man not only gained entertainment and religious knowledge, but children also imbibed moral lessons deeply etched in these stories.

Measurement - Height 20.3 cm

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