KHOVAR PAINTINGS

Khovar  is  the marriage art exclusively done during the marriage season (May-June) and found in the villages around Hazaribagh. It is a delicate comb-cut sagraffito art made with a piece of comb using mud pigments of white kaolin and black manganese.  It is covered with black earth representing the Mother (Kali-Mati / Kali the mother goddess, Mati: earth) which is Manganese. When the white is covered entirely over the black earth and cut with a comb then forms of the mother goddess appear. This is the earliest kind of writing (Likhna), and it is believed that even before speech had developed fifty to a hundred thousand years ago, the earliest humans were communicating through signs.
 

The symbols of Khovar are unavoidably linked to the sacred complex of rockart sites in Hazaribagh region. Forest dwelling tribes have forest forms in their art like the tiger, deer, elephant, peacock, snake, bull, etc. River valley and plains dwelling agricultural tribes have domestic animal forms like the cow, bull, goat, fowl, pigeon, peacock, lotus, etc. Some human forms and marriage mandala or Chouk is also commonly seen.
 

Khovar is particularly practiced in the Barkagaon villages-like Kharati, Bahduli Pipradi, Napo, etc. near the Isco rockart. In places like Jorakath and nearby in the North Karanpura valley the comb-cut Khovar practiced during the harvest festival is defaced with  white stamping made with corn cobs or ladles with red vermilion in the centre.