Pabuji ki Phad, a Rajasthani scroll painting on cloth depicting the folk deity Pabuji

Phad: A Temple You Can Roll Up

August 18, 2026 Khinkhwab Team

Some cloths are worn; some are hung; this one is a temple you can carry. A phad is up to thirty feet of painted cloth that holds an entire epic — and a god — and is unrolled and sung through the night by a travelling bard.

✨ Fun fact: A phad is not a picture of a shrine — it is the shrine. When it is finally worn out, it is ceremonially retired by immersion in the holy waters at Pushkar, the way one would respectfully lay a deity to rest.

Pabuji ki Phad, Rajasthani scroll painting on cloth — A *Pabuji ki Phad* — the epic of the folk-hero Pabuji spread across a horizontal cloth scroll, scenes arranged by the geography of the story rather than a simple left-to-right reading.

A god on a scroll

Phad is the sacred scroll-painting of Rajasthan — a long band of handspun khadi cotton, about fifteen feet for the epic of Pabuji and up to thirty for Devnarayan, the whole life of a folk deity painted at once: battles and processions, horses and peacocks, washermen and queens. The composition is not read left to right; the scenes are laid out by the geography of the tale, so a single cloth is at once a map, a comic and a scripture.

Rajasthani painting folk hero procession horses warriors 18th century Metropolitan Museum — Rajasthani folk-hero scene, 18th century. Metropolitan Museum of Art (Public Domain). The bold flat colour, confident outline and crowded composition shared with the great phad scroll tradition.

The travelling temple

The phad belongs to the Bhopas — priest-singers who carried these scrolls from village to village. At night they would unroll the cloth between two poles: the Bhopa singing the epic and playing the ravanhattha, a spike fiddle, while the Bhopi held up a lamp and lit each scene in turn. The audience did not merely watch a painting. They attended a temple that had walked into their village.

The Joshis, and the making

The phad is the hereditary craft of the Joshi families of Shahpura, Bhilwara. The khadi is primed with a boiled paste of flour and gum, burnished smooth; then mineral and vegetable colours go on in strict order, with the black outlines drawn last. The final stroke — painting the deity’s eyes — is said to consecrate the phad as a living shrine.

Handwoven Banarasi Katan Silk Kadwa Chameli Bel Saree in Sage Green — Khinkhwab — Katan Silk Kadwa Chameli Bel Saree in Sage Green — Khinkhwab. A different medium, the same devotion to hand-made pattern built from natural materials by a craftsperson who knows no other way.

The thread we love

A cloth that is a map, a scripture and a theatre; a temple light enough to carry on a bard’s shoulder — the phad shows cloth doing something almost no other material has been trusted to do: to be the sacred. That conviction is the one we weave into every Banarasi. Explore our handwoven Brocade Fabric collection.

Frequently asked questions

What is a phad?

A large horizontal scroll painting on cloth from Rajasthan, depicting the epics of folk deities — chiefly Pabuji and Devnarayan. It functions as a portable temple carried and performed by Bhopa priest-singers.