For over 2000 years artists travelled throughout India, using painted picture scrolls to spread stories from the great Indian epics, as well as a wealth of stories about regional Gods and heroes and moral tales, amongst the most illiterate rural population. In the east of Indiain West Bengal and Jharkhandtwo closely related but distinctive picture scroll traditions have been upheld: the patua and the jadopatia. The first presentation of the history of the perennial and evolving Bengali picture scrolls, an East Indian tradition of painting picture scrolls and performing them through songs, as a form of craftsmanship and storytelling art, from a travelling street art to earning a living.
