Shrine Paintings of the Potraja Community: Depicting Agrarian Culture and Rituals

The Indian society comprises of various castes and sub-castes that in the olden days had been organised into a neat system. At its centre was the farmer who supplied food and thereby took care of the sustenance of all the people. But outside its periphery lay many wandering tribes and communities whose subsistence was not quite the concern of the rural economy. One such community is that of the nomadic Potraja devotees of Maharashtra, who originally hailed from Andhra Pradesh. The Potrajas possess wooden mobile shrines decorated with paintings on various themes, including some based-on agriculture. These shrine paintings draw inspiration from the scroll paintings of Andhra Pradesh. The present research paper attempts to interpret the social relevance of agriculture as manifested in the iconography on Potraja shrines.