Odisha Pattachitra - Navagunjara | 100% Linen | Limited Edition

Navagunjara belongs to a distinctly Odia imagination of the Mahabharata.

Its story is associated with the Odia Mahabharata of Sarala Das, the fifteenth-century poet whose retelling of the epic became foundational to Odisha’s literary tradition. In this narrative world, Arjuna encounters an extraordinary being whose body cannot be understood through any single familiar form.

Navagunjara brings together nine different living forms in one body. Its anatomy draws upon the characteristics of different creatures, while a human arm bearing a divine attribute provides the crucial sign of recognition. What initially appears strange and impossible gradually reveals itself to Arjuna as a manifestation of the divine.

The composite body is central to the meaning of Navagunjara. Its different parts are not assembled merely to create a fantastical creature. They express an idea of the many existing within the one — that the divine may appear beyond familiar categories and still remain whole.

This makes Arjuna’s act of recognition as important as the form itself. He must look beyond the apparent contradictions of the body before him and perceive the unity contained within it. Navagunjara therefore becomes an image not only of divine manifestation, but also of perception: the ability to recognise a larger order within forms that initially seem irreconcilable.

The subject holds particular importance in Odisha because it connects two of the region’s enduring cultural languages — literature and painting. Emerging from Odisha’s own telling of the Mahabharata, Navagunjara entered the visual vocabulary of the region and has been represented by painters associated with centres such as Puri and Raghurajpur. The form is also historically known as Ath-Rangi, reflecting its long presence within Odisha’s painted traditions.

Within Odisha Pattachitra, Navagunjara is therefore more than an arresting composite figure. It carries forward an imagination particular to the region: an episode shaped through Odia literature and preserved through generations of image-making.

On this linen kurta, the hand-painted Navagunjara continues that visual lineage. Its intentionally composite anatomy remains the centre of the composition, allowing an old Odia conception of multiplicity, recognition and divine presence to enter a contemporary object without losing the story from which it originates.

Nine forms inhabit one being. What first challenges recognition ultimately reveals the possibility of the divine existing beyond any single form.