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The Legend of 

DEVNARAYAN

The Cultural Informatics Lab. Team working on Devnarayan

DEVNARAYAN-A legend eleven hundred years old and a tradition of seven hundred years of continuity.  IGNCA's multimedia project on Devnarayan takes you across space and time to the magic of the oral epic of Devnarayan.

This oral epic, one of the oldest living Indian traditions, narrates the story of Devnarayan, a legendary king who is believed to have been an incarnation of Lord Vishnu.  The epic and its recital are part of the lives of the Gujjar community in Rajasthan and north-western Madhya Pradesh, who worship Devnarayan.  And the entire story of Devnarayan is recited by Bhopas (singer priests) in the nights during the months November to July.

The epic is sung to the accompaniment of Jantar (single-stringed musical instrument) and the sound of the anklet of the Bhopa.  The Bhopa wears the traditional Rajasthani costume, with a decorated turban (see inside front cover).  The entire epic is painted on a scroll called `phad'.  Only one family in the community is ordained to paint the `phad'.  The Bhopa lights a lamp and hangs it in front of that protion of the painting, which depicts the episode he is about to narrate.

IGNCA's multimedia programme documenting this unique tradition is near-completion and the huge multimedia corpus will be released on DVD.  It contains 30 hours of audio and four and a half hours of video.  The entire `phad' is exhaustively hot spotted (interactive lables) and the narration is indexed by the chhand (stanza).  The labels are co-related to the text.  The text in turn is indexed and numbered.  The multilayered DVD will also have computer animation.

The epic Devnarayan is in a dialect of Rajasthani.  This has been transcribed and transliterated.  Dr Aditya Malik, University of Canterbury, Newzealand, who has done extensive work on this has lent his expertise for this.  According to Shri Sanjay Goel, Director Multimedia, this DVD is a pioneering effort and could be the trend setter in the field of cultural documentation using interactive multimedia.  The project had the complete involvement of Shri Shrilal Joshi, a Bhopa and head of the family ordained to paint `phad'.  The DVD, when released would probably be the first scholarly work in the area of cultural documentation.  The DVD also shows the process of painting the `phad' by Shri Joshi, who breaking the tradition has taken students under him to train them.  Traditionally, the `phad' painting was taught only to the daughters-in-law and sons to keep the knowledge within the family.  Daughters, as they are married `out' were not taught.

The DVD on Devnarayan will be a milestone in the series of IGNCA's interactive multimedia programme.  It has previously released three CD-ROMS on Devadasi Murai (Remembering Devdasis), Rock Art and Mukteswara.

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