Odia Artist Raghunath Prusti

The Probable Progenitor of an Alternative Modernity

Ramakanta Samantaray and Sailen Routray

Illustration by Raghunath Prusti of 'Labanyabati' by Upendra Bhanja

Odia artist Raghunath Prusti was born in Mundamarei in Ganjam district of Orissa. He also went by another name ‘Uluchakra’. The writer and art historian J. P. Das argues that he lived sometime in the latter half of 19th century, based on the themes and style of his paintings.

However, it must be noted here that other scholars have dated him in the 18th century and the first half of the nineteenth. He was firmly rooted in his place of origin, Mundamarei. He was from a poor Vaishya family belonging to the teli caste that followed the traditional occupation of oil pressing and trading of turmeric. No one in his family survives now.

Prusti earned a living solely through work as an artist. Five of his thirteen works are in the possession of a Kumuti (trading/merchant caste folk of South Orissa) family of Mundamarei. For this patron Raghunath illustrated the manuscripts of ‘Gita Govinda’, ‘ArtatrAna ChautisA’, ‘UsAbhilAsa’, ‘LAbanyabati’ and ‘DAsapoi’. His other notable works include the illustrations of ‘SobhAbati’, ‘Prasna ChudAmani’ and ‘Sangita DAmodara’.

A large number of painters in Orissa traditionally belonged to Brahmin and KAyastha (Karana) communities. So as a Vaishya painter Raghunath Prusti occupied a liminal social space. He worked only on palm leaf manuscripts. 

He introduced several non-traditional thematic elements into his work, such as clocks, regency era furniture and English soldiers. He also dealt with novel stylistic elements in the Western style, such as three-quarter views of faces and spatial overlaps. 

Because of innovations that were rooted in his own cultural and artistic milieu, he might be seen as one of the true precursors of artistic modernity in the Odia speaking regions.

For Further Reading

Das, J.P. and Joanna Williams. 2017 [First Revised Edition]. ‘Palm-Leaf Miniatures: The Art of Raghunath Prusti of Orissa.’ Gurgaon: Shubhi Publications.