Sohrai Art

Sohrai art is a traditional mural painting practice of the Santhal, Munda, and Oraon communities of Jharkhand, intimately tied to the Sohrai harvest festival – a post-harvest thanksgiving to nature, cattle, and agricultural abundance celebrated around Diwali.

Historically painted by women on freshly plastered mud walls using natural earth pigments in blacks, whites, reds, and ochres, the murals are visual celebrations of agrarian life, fertility, and coexistence with the natural world. Animals – cows, elephants, deer, birds, fish – occupy a central place in the compositions, alongside trees, river forms, and forest-inspired patterns, with strong symbolic connections to livestock and seasonal cycles. Style varies richly from village to village, shaped by local mythologies and ritual traditions, while many scholars trace the tradition's visual roots to prehistoric cave paintings of eastern India.

In recent decades, Sohrai art has transitioned to paper, canvas, and exhibition spaces, supported by artists and cultural organisations working to sustain livelihoods for women practitioners. At its heart, it remains a way of seeing, one in which humans, animals, seasons, and spiritual life exist in mutual, grateful relationship with the land.