Famous Patachitra painting and Ganjapa Patachitra Cards

Odisha is a state of arts and cultures. Here varieties of arts and crafts are present from ancient days. One of the famous arts in Odisha is pattachitra art. The pattachitra arts are basically beautiful paintings made on cloths by traditional artist of Odisha. More accurately the place “Raghurajpur” is very much popular and well known for the Pattachitra art. From very old days skilful artist of this village producing very fine art pieces of the famous art. The word pattachitra is a combination of two Sanskrit word “Patta” means “cloth” and chitra meance “picture”. So the meaning of pattachitra is cloth-based scroll painting. This is a traditional painting in Odisha. As the theme and style of the pattachitra painting are inspaired from the life style of Hindu god Lord Jagannath, Lord Krishna and the subject matter of the pattachitra painting is mostly mythological, religious stories and folk lore these paintings are very much important for Hindus from the religion point of view.  

The themes of the pattachitra paintings are chiefly on Lord Jagannath and Radha-Krishna, different "Vesas" of Shri Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra, temple activities, the ten incarnations of Vishnu basing on the 'Gita Govinda' of Jayadev, Kama Kujara Navagunjara, Ramayana, Mahabharata, so most of the Hindu people in all over the Odisha like these paintings very much.

Ganjapa Patachitra Cards Online Shopping

As pattachitra paintings are becomes very much popular, so the artist of odisha uses the theme and style of pattachitra painting in different arts. One of the finest examples of this is Famous Ganjapa Patachitra Cards.

Ganjapa Patachitra Cards are use in a traditional card game of Odisha named as “Ganjapa”. This is a traditional card in Odisha from very old days. This traditional card game Ganjapa is played with circular shaped cards and the cards are Pattachitra painted cards. The game Ganjapa originated in the 16th century. This game Ganjapa is a recreational game for males of the Odisha, primarily villagers, kings and their court men and other peoples are very much enjoyed the game. This game Ganjapa is played as "Charirangi" means cards of 4 colors, "Atharangi" means cards of 8 colours, "Dasarangi" means cards of 10 colours, "Bararangi" means cards of 12 colours, "Chaudarangi" means cards of 14 colours and "Sohalarangi" means cards of 16 colours are played.

As kings and reach people are very much like to play this game, so they like very decorative and beautiful cards. So the art works used on Ganjapa cards are Pattachitra painting to make the cards very attractive. The artist use Pattachitra motifs and patterns with figurative representations of dancers and other people along with the Ramayana, Dasavatara of Hindu god Vishnu, and other deities of Hindu mythology are painted on the round cards that gives the card very impressive look and the players enjoy the beauty of the cards during playing. The art works always vary from region to region and community to community. Ganjapa card art work from Ganjam varies from that of Puri. In different regions of odisha many artist added their own style and unique touch of their creativity to make the cards unique.