#ashokasays Did you know 314:
Each cards were sensitively hand painted with super fine squirrel hair brushes using Vegetables and mineral colors in miniature style. Various mediums like Ivory, tortoise shell, mother of pearl, gold and silver in circular and rectangular shapes. Ganjifa Cards were created on handmade paper, cloth or sandalwood.
But not to worry there is one man who has revived this art of Mysooru Ganjifa to some extent. Raghupathi Bhat.
Raghupathi Bhat revived Mysore Ganjifa Paintings in the early 1980’s (1981-1982). He chanced upon 200 years old Ganjifa originals and he was attracted to the beauty of the paintings and was fascinated with the fact that these cards had stood the test of time and not lost any of their original beauty.Later after a lot of research , God gifted skills and with his immense knowledge he successfully re-created large numbers of Ganjifa Paintings and conducted workshops and trained hundreds of artisans so far.
Raghupathi Bhat had established the Ganjifa Art museum in Sri Rangapatna in 1991 and was shifted that to Mysore Wellington house in 1994 which was the World’s first Ganjifa Museum.
INCREDIBLE BHARATHA AND BHARATHIYA
Playing cards has been one of the best pass times from
centuries in this country. Yes, not the type we do today. Possibly its
the westerners who have gained from us. It was really colorful the way
people here played. To know the kind of playing, you should know about
"Ganjifa" Cards.
“Ganjifa” is the name given to an ancient Indian card game.
The cards are typically circular although some rectangular decks have been produced. This was a game that was popular and played across Medieval India. Each region in the country had its own form of the game. There was the Sawantwadi Ganjifa from Maharashtra, Navadurga Ganjifa from Orrisa, Rajasthan and Gujrat Ganjifa , Kashmir Ganjifa, Nepal Ganjifa and the Mysooru Ganjifa which was greatly patronized by the Mysore Royal family, The Wodeyars during their reign.
Mysooru Ganjifa, given that the main aim of the game was to teach, learn and tell stories
from our ancient scriptures and holy books, all the 18 games in the
Mysooru Ganjifa Style were set to stories and shloka’s from the Hindu
Purana’s, stories from the Ramayana, Mahabharata etc. The Dashavatara
Ganjifa which is a series based on the 10 different forms of the Hindu
God Vishnu was the most popular of the 18 Ganjifa games and is the best
known to this day. The Dashavatara Ganjifa has a set of 120 different
playing cards.“Ganjifa” is the name given to an ancient Indian card game.
Originally the one thousand years old playing cards from India were known as Kreeda Patra in Sanskrit.
During the Mughal rule and with the advent of handmade
paper ,the indoor game became a royal pastime and was patronized by the
Badshas. It was during this period that with the Persian and Arabic
Influence the Kreeda Patra was called Ganjifa Ganj means money or
treasure and playing for stakes became a favorite diversion among the
aristocrats.The cards are typically circular although some rectangular decks have been produced. This was a game that was popular and played across Medieval India. Each region in the country had its own form of the game. There was the Sawantwadi Ganjifa from Maharashtra, Navadurga Ganjifa from Orrisa, Rajasthan and Gujrat Ganjifa , Kashmir Ganjifa, Nepal Ganjifa and the Mysooru Ganjifa which was greatly patronized by the Mysore Royal family, The Wodeyars during their reign.
Each cards were sensitively hand painted with super fine squirrel hair brushes using Vegetables and mineral colors in miniature style. Various mediums like Ivory, tortoise shell, mother of pearl, gold and silver in circular and rectangular shapes. Ganjifa Cards were created on handmade paper, cloth or sandalwood.
The old state of Mysore saw a great cultural and religious
revival under Mommudi Krishnaraja Wodeyar (1794-1868).The Maharaja was
the author of –among many books-the monumental ‘Sri Tatwanidhi’ the
last chapter of which describes a 18 packs of cards(Kreeda Patra)
invented and designed by ruler and his artists. These Kreeda Patras
were also known as Chada or DevaraAata (God’s Game) in Karnataka.
Though this craft was a remarkable instance of the superb
craftsmanship the Ganjifa artists with the introduction of European
Cards in 19th century the adoration of Ganjifa gradually went down and
viewers as well as the players got much attracted to the stylized
figures of French King, Queen and Jack.Raghupathi Bhat revived Mysore Ganjifa Paintings in the early 1980’s (1981-1982). He chanced upon 200 years old Ganjifa originals and he was attracted to the beauty of the paintings and was fascinated with the fact that these cards had stood the test of time and not lost any of their original beauty.Later after a lot of research , God gifted skills and with his immense knowledge he successfully re-created large numbers of Ganjifa Paintings and conducted workshops and trained hundreds of artisans so far.
Raghupathi Bhat had established the Ganjifa Art museum in Sri Rangapatna in 1991 and was shifted that to Mysore Wellington house in 1994 which was the World’s first Ganjifa Museum.
You can know more about this here http://mysoreganjifa.com/ and may buy some from here for your collection.
You can also buy other Ganjifa's here http://ganjifa-kishor.com/
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| Raghupathi Bhat |
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