Indian shadow puppet

Title	[Tholu Bommalaata]
Place	India
Date	19th century
Register	01977

This figure for the shadow theatre is the Tholu Bommalaata, a tradition in Andhra Pradesh, a state in India. Tholu means ‘leather’, bommalu, ‘doll’; and aata, ‘dance’. Figures of this kind have characteristically large and prominent eyes and are made from various parts of dyed goat or fallow deer skin: on the one hand the head and the body, joined by a stem, and on the other the limbs, which are articulated. They depict characters and scenes taken from the great epic poems, the Rāmāyana and Mahābhārata, as well as other stories such as the Sundarakanda, which were staged with the intention of making the audience weep. The colours, style and decorative elements of these figures are reminiscent of those to be seen on the ceiling of the Lepakshi temple, which dates back to the 16th century, in the Anantapur region of Andhra Pradesh.

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