Moreover puppetry has also been used and incorporated in school education. Alongside religious education, in the last decades, government initiatives have also been propagated by puppetry, such as hygiene and family planning campaigns. Over the centuries puppetry fulfilled at least two functions-education and entertainment. Epic plays allow the puppeteers to cover a pedagogic role, teaching the masses about gods and heroes, and the many ethical implications of the sacred stories.
This also happens with many other Indian performing arts, it should suffice to mention dance. In traditional puppetry the plots are mainly derived from the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Puranas (stories of gods and goddesses). Shows include live music, narration and gestures taken from dance (Yarrow 2001:69). Puppetry is a type of narrative theatre at the crossroads between bardic storytelling and theatre plays. According to a scholar, puppetry outdates theatrical plays as the word sutradhara, that indicates the director and main storyteller in Sanskrit plays, literally means the ‘string holder’ (Baird 1965:46 Philpott 1969:112). These data reinforce the idea that the several living traditions of Indian puppetry are heirs of a refined and noble art prospering in the past. The antiquity of Indian puppetry has been highlighted by Richard Pischel (1849-1908), an important German scholar, who argued that India was the source of Western puppet traditions (Foley and Pudumjee 2013). Tamil texts from the 2 nd century BCE onwards mention dolls moved by strings (Chattopadhyay 1995 (1975):158). Puppetry is mentioned in the Mahabharata (dated from the 9 th century BCE, it reached the written form in the 4 th century BCE), in Panini’s grammar (4 th century BCE), and in Patanjali’s texts (2 nd century BCE) (Sarma and Singh 2010:35). Several literary sources report the existence of puppetry in ancient times. Further evidence of the link of puppetry with the highest social groups is in the attestation of the word gombe, meaning puppet, used as a surname for Brahmin families in the southern regions (Tilakasiri 1969:21). Nowadays, traditional puppetry is regarded as a folk art typical of the rural environment-in the past it was taken into high consideration in the urban elite and among the nobles (Baird 1965:46). With the help and blessings of the gods, the artisan then invented a system of strings to move the dolls, and so puppetry was born (Chattopadhyay 1995 (1975):159).ĭivine origin of puppetry is stressed in both stories, and this testifies the importance of puppetry in India. An artisan manufactured two wooden dolls that captured the attention of Parvati-the goddess and his divine companion entered the dolls and started an exquisite dance and when they got sick of this play they abandoned the dolls and the artisan was very sad at his dolls being lifeless again. An alternative legend has as protagonist the god Shiva, patron of puppetry, and his wife Parvati. This legend applies most probably to the Rajasthani tradition, nat bhatt being the name of the puppeteer cast from this region (Sarma and Singh 2010:35). Not satisfied with his work, Brahma banished the puppeteer to earth, starting the line of nat bhatt puppeteers. According to one legend, the creator Brahma gave life to the adi, the first nat puppeteer, and created the first puppet for the entertainment of his wife Saraswati. The origin of puppetry in India cannot be dated, but mythology provides at least two stories that are witness to the importance of this art, even if they don’t give any historical data. Though there is enormous diversity, there are common traits. Several regional genres make puppetry one of the richest heritages of India. Indian puppetry is a subject as varied as the many cultural traditions of the Indian subcontinent.
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