Tholu bommalata is the shadow puppet theatre tradition of the state of Andhra Pradesh in India with roots dating back to 3rd century BCE.[1][2][3] Its performers are part of a group of wandering entertainers and peddlers who pass through villages during the course of a year and offer to sing ballads, tell fortunes, sell amulets, perform acrobatics, charm snakes, weave fishnets, tattoo local people and mend pots. Tholu bommalata has a history of consistent royal patronage.[4] It is the ancestor of Wayang, the Indonesian puppet theatre play which has been a staple of Indonesian tourism and designated by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.[11]
This ancient custom, which for centuries before radio, film, and television provided knowledge of Hindu epics and local folk tales, not to mention news, spread to the most remote corners of the Indian subcontinent.[1] The puppeteers comprise some of the various entertainers who perform all night and usually reenact various stories from Hindu epics such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata.[12]
- ^ a b "Puppet Forms of India". Centre for Cultural Resources and Training (CCRT), Ministry of Culture, Government of India. Archived from the original on 15 May 2013.
- ^ Osnes, Beth (2001). Acting: An International Encyclopedia. ABC-Clio. pp. 152, 335. ISBN 978-0-87436-795-9.
- ^ a b Datta, Amaresh (1988). Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature: Devraj to Jyoti. Sahitya Akademi. p. 1317. ISBN 978-81-260-1194-0.
Puppetry is one of the most ancient Indian folk arts and Andhra history records that this art was in vogue during the Satavahana period in the 4th century B.C. Art critics opine that the puppetry spread from Andhra to Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, and from there to Africa, Greece, Macedonia and the Byzantine empire.
- ^ Osnes, Beth (10 January 2014). The Shadow Puppet Theatre of Malaysia: A Study of Wayang Kulit with Performance Scripts and Puppet Designs. McFarland & Company. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-7864-5792-2.
- ^ "Wayang | Indonesian theatre". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
Developed before the 10th century, the form had origins in the tholu bommalata, the leather puppets of southern India. The art of shadow puppetry probably spread to Java with the spread of Hinduism.
- ^ Keith, Rawlings (November 1999). "Observations on the historical development of puppetry - Chapter Two". Retrieved 3 April 2023.
Perhaps the most interesting of the south-Indian puppet types for me, however, were the tholu bommalata -- the articulated, leather, shadow puppets -- which are the probable ancestors of Indonesia's wayang.
- ^ Currell, David (1974). The Complete Book of Puppetry. Pitman. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-273-36118-3.
The tolu bommalata shadow puppets are found in the Andhra region and may be the origin of the Javanese wayang kulit puppets.
- ^ Rāmarāju, Bi (1991). Glimpses Into Telugu Folklore. Janapada Vijnana Prachuranalu. p. 90.
Leather puppet shadow play is one of the most ancient performing folk art forms known to Andhras from 3rd century B.C. Historians and art critics opine that it spread to Java, Malaysia, and Indonesia from Andhra.
- ^ Sharma, Manorma (2004). Folk India: A Comprehenseive Study of Indian Folk Music and Culture. Sundeep Prakashan. p. 33. ISBN 978-81-7574-140-9.
Indonesian version of Tholu Bommalata known as "Wayang" has roots in the Telugu-speaking region.
- ^ Autiero, Serena. Tholu Bommalata: Telugu Shadow Puppet Theatre.
- ^ [5][6][7][8][3][9][10]
- ^ "Andhra Pradesh". Puppetryindia.org. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 30 April 2013.