SOUTH INDIA, 18TH CENTURY

This fragment was part of a narrative scroll used during performances recounting the tales of Bhavana, the mythical primogenitor of the Padmasalis, a sub-caste of weavers. Our panel depicts Vishnu reclining on the serpent floating on the primordial ocean. Issuing from his navel is the lotus from where Brahma appears, from its fibre Bhavana first spun the threads of fabric to cloth the Gods. After accomplishing this feat he married Bhadaravti and sired a hundred and one sons. All but one became the ancestors of the Padamsalis.
These large cloth panels would be unrolled in rhythm with the narrator’s story and the musician accompanying him. Each story, composed of many episodes, had a particular narrative and iconography directed to a specific caste. The handling and the climate meant those large pictorial screens were kept only for a limited period of time. Once used, those panels would be copied by a master painter before being ritually cremated, their ashes scattered in a river (Dallapiccola, A. L, South Indian Paintings, a Catalogue of the British Museum Collection, Ahmedabad 2010).

For a related panel dated late 18th or early 19th century, see Dallapiccola, A. L, South Indian Paintings, a Catalogue of the British Museum Collection, Ahmedabad 2010, cat. 23, p. 231