Secondary Keywords: bommalattam, tolpavakoothu, putul nach, shadow puppets india, kathputli colony, rajasthani puppets
Author: Theatre of India Editorial
Last Updated: 2026-03-26
Puppet Theatre of India: From Rajasthan’s Kathputli to Karnataka’s Yakshagana Gombeyata
There’s a moment—one I’ve witnessed dozens of times but never stops making my breath catch—when a puppeteer’s fingers begin to move and suddenly the wooden figure in their hands lives. I’m sitting on the dusty ground outside Jaisalmer, watching a kathputli performance under stars so bright they seem close enough to touch. The puppeteer, a man whose name I learn is Mohan Bhat, is barely visible in the lamplight. What you notice instead are his hands—weathered, precise, moving with the kind of practiced grace that comes from thirty years of making string puppets dance.
A wooden princess, no more than two feet tall, emerges from the darkness. Her face is painted with the simplest features—two black dots for eyes, a curved line for a smile—yet somehow she has more presence than a hundred actors. She wears a ghaghra of faded red cotton, studded with mirrors that catch the firelight. When she dances, her whole being seems to shimmer. The audience gasps. A child in the front row inches forward, utterly transfixed.
This is the magic of indian puppet theatre, and it lives everywhere in this country. Not just in Rajasthan’s deserts, though that’s where kathputli string puppets have been telling stories for centuries. Not just in any single tradition, but scattered across the entire subcontinent in forms so diverse, so deeply rooted in regional culture, that they’re practically different art forms altogether.
Why India’s Puppet Traditions Are Like Nowhere Else
Here’s what strikes me most about Indian puppet traditions: there’s no single “Indian puppet theatre.” Instead, there are many, each one distinctly regional, each one with its own puppeteers, its own stories, its own aesthetic entirely.
Walk from Rajasthan into Tamil Nadu and you’ve moved from string puppets to rod puppets that stand nearly four feet tall. Travel from Tamil Nadu to Kerala and suddenly you’re dealing with leather shadow puppets cast against a backlit screen, the stories sung in Malayalam. Head to Karnataka and you’ll find puppets that mirror the movements of live yakshagana actors with astonishing precision. Go to Bengal and you’ll encounter danger putuls—rod puppets with articulated limbs—that move with an entirely different kind of expressiveness.
This diversity exists because Indian puppet theatre isn’t a unified tradition handed down from a central source. It evolved organically in different regions, absorbing local stories, local music, local sensibilities. The Rajasthani puppeteer telling stories of Amar Singh Rathore has absolutely nothing in common with the Kerala puppeteer performing the Kamba Ramayana all night long in a temple. They’re separated by language, by geography, by the very techniques they use. Yet they’re connected by something fundamental: the human impulse to make wood and cloth and leather into storytellers.
The four major types of Indian puppet theatre exist here: string puppets, rod puppets, shadow puppets, and glove puppets. Every region has developed at least one, and some regions have developed all of them. This is why puppet theatre in India isn’t a niche art form clinging to survival. It’s a thriving ecosystem of traditions, each adapted to its landscape, its audience, its particular dramatic needs.
Kathputli: Rajasthan’s Dancing Dolls on Strings
Let me take you back to that performance in Jaisalmer, because Rajasthan’s kathputli tradition deserves your full attention.
Kathputli literally means “wooden doll”—kath for wood, putli for doll. But the simplicity of the name doesn’t prepare you for the sophistication of what these puppets can do. They’re not marionettes in the European sense, where a puppeteer stands above the action working multiple strings. Kathputli puppets are manipulated by a single string attached to the wooden cross that the puppeteer holds. The entire body of the puppet—limbs, torso, head—moves through the manipulation of tension and angle on that single string, almost like conducting an orchestra with one baton.
The kathputli are carved from mango wood, light enough to be suspended but dense enough to have real presence. The best puppets come from craftspeople in Jaipur who’ve been making them for generations. The limbs are jointed with cloth, allowing for fluid movement. The faces are painted with such restraint—just enough to convey character—that you project the rest of the personality yourself. It’s a kind of artistic minimalism that paradoxically feels more expressive than a realistically painted face ever could.
The costumes are where you see real lavishness. Women puppets wear ghagras—full circular skirts—often decorated with embroidered patches and mirrors that reflect the lamplight. The men wear traditional Rajasthani dresses, turbans, jackets with fine details. These clothes are made by hand, often by the puppeteers’ wives and daughters. I’ve watched Mohan Bhat’s daughter, Priya, stitch tiny mirror patches onto a kathputli’s costume, her needlework so fine it rivals jewelry.
The stories these puppets tell are drawn from Rajasthani folklore and legend. Amar Singh Rathore is perhaps the most famous—the tragic tale of a Rajput warrior whose wife leaves him after he defeats her brother in battle. It’s a story loaded with honor, with impossible choices, with the kind of emotional weight that audiences carry with them long after the performance ends. There’s also Prithviraj Raso, the legendary romance of the Rajput hero Prithviraj and the Padmini of Chitor. When these stories are performed by kathputli, the simplicity of the puppets somehow deepens the emotional impact. You’re not watching a spectacle; you’re watching essential tragedy distilled to its purest form.
The performances happen in the evenings, often outdoors in courtyards or on streets. The puppeteer sits to one side, visible but not the center of attention, working the cross with hands that seem to know the story by muscle memory. There’s usually a single musician—someone playing a drum, a been, sometimes a sarangi. The music follows the action, building for dramatic moments, softening for intimate scenes. The whole thing has an improvisational quality, even though you sense these puppeteers have performed these stories a thousand times.
Now, I have to address something that’s central to understanding kathputli today: the story of Kathputli Colony in Delhi. This colony was established in the 1960s as a settlement for kathputli puppeteers displaced from other parts of the city. For decades, it was the beating heart of Rajasthani puppetry in Delhi, where tourists could watch performances, where families lived and worked and passed down their traditions to their children.
Then, around 2007, the Delhi Development Authority acquired the land for redevelopment. What followed was a decade-long battle. The puppeteers—families who’d lived there for generations—were promised rehabilitation housing. They were offered plots in Dakshin Puri, far from the city center, far from the tourist circuits that had sustained their livelihoods. Some accepted. Others fought. By 2016, most had been relocated, and the colony’s physical presence was erased.
This wasn’t just about losing a neighborhood. It was about losing access to audiences, losing the social fabric that sustained the tradition, losing the visibility that kept kathputli relevant in an increasingly digital world. Some puppeteers have adapted, performing at cultural centers and festivals. Others have stepped away from the tradition entirely. It’s one of the most visible ways that puppet traditions india face contemporary challenges, and it’s a reminder that preserving these art forms isn’t just about artistic appreciation—it’s about giving communities the material conditions to continue their work.
That said, kathputli continues. Puppeteers still travel through Rajasthan’s villages performing in courtyards. Families still make kathputlis with the same techniques their ancestors used. The tradition is transformed but not destroyed, and there’s something profoundly resilient about that.
Bommalattam: Tamil Nadu’s Rod Puppets Standing Four Feet Tall
Travel south to Tamil Nadu and you enter the world of bommalattam—a tradition that feels almost outsized compared to kathputli. These puppets are big, often reaching four feet in height. They’re rod puppets, meaning they’re manipulated by wooden rods attached to the body, usually held from below. But bommalattam isn’t simply rod puppet theatre—it’s a hybrid form that combines rod manipulation with string control for the finer movements of hands and face.
The word bommalattam comes from bomma (doll in Telugu and Tamil) and attam (play). You’ll find this tradition primarily in the Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu, where certain families have maintained the form for centuries. The puppets are carved from lightweight wood and dressed in elaborate costumes—women wearing silk sarees, men in dhotis and jackets—that make them look like miniature classical dancers frozen mid-movement.
What distinguishes bommalattam is the sheer physical presence of these large puppets. When you’re watching a performance, you’re aware of the scale. A bommalattam Ravana dominates the stage, his multiple arms creating an impression of imminent violence, his face painted with the fierce intensity of the demon king. A Draupadi puppet, moving in her characteristic swaying gait, has a grace that seems almost to transcend her wooden construction.
The stories come from the epics—the Ramayana and Mahabharata—but they’re adapted to the specificities of Tamil culture and sensibility. The performances include passages of dialogue that are witty and topical, often improvised based on current events or the composition of the audience. I watched a performance in Nangudi where the puppeteers made jokes about a recent political scandal, and the audience roared. These aren’t museum pieces; they’re living traditions that adapt and respond to their audiences.
The puppeteers—often hereditary specialists from particular families—have an intimate knowledge of movement that would make a classical dancer envious. They understand how a saree drapes, how a dhoti falls, how a body moves through space. They translate all of this into wood and string and rod, creating a kind of three-dimensional poetry.
One family I spoke with, the Sambandams of Tirukkoshtyur, have been performing bommalattam for over two hundred years. The current patriarch, Dharmaraj Sambandan, learned the craft from his father, who learned it from his father. He can carve a puppet from raw wood in about six weeks, doing much of the detailed work by hand with simple chisels. He can speak for hours about the distinctions between different characters’ movements, the way a demon moves differently from a god, the way a woman moves differently from a man. This knowledge is encoded in his hands and his body, and it’s transmitted through practice and observation and the kind of patient apprenticeship that’s increasingly rare in the modern world.
Tolpavakoothu: Kerala’s Sacred Shadow Puppets
Kerala’s tolpavakoothu—the name means “leather play”—is perhaps the most visually striking of India’s puppet traditions, at least in terms of pure aesthetics. These are shadow puppets cut from leather, cast against a backlit screen, creating silhouettes of extraordinary intricacy.
The puppets are made from deer hide, carefully selected and treated. The figures are cut with such precision that details you can barely see in shadow—the folds of a garment, the curve of a face, the individual strands of hair—are rendered in the leather. When the lamplight (traditionally oil lamps, now increasingly electric lights) hits the screen from behind, these details create a visual texture that’s utterly hypnotic.
What makes tolpavakoothu unique in the Indian context is its religious function. These performances traditionally happen in Bhadrakali temples during specific festival seasons, particularly during Baisakhi. The performances are all-night events, lasting from dusk until dawn. The audience sits on three sides of the screen, watching the shadows come alive with movement. The stories typically come from the Kamba Ramayana, a Malayalam adaptation of the epic.
I attended a tolpavakoothu performance at the Kodungallur Bhagavathi Temple during the Cochin Biennale, and I’ll be honest—I wasn’t prepared for the emotional intensity. The puppeteers—there are usually two or three working together—move the figures with such fluidity that you almost forget you’re watching shadows. The leather, being translucent, allows for layers of complexity. You see not just the outline of a character but also the internal details cut into the leather. Rama raising his bow has a particular kind of power when rendered as a shadow, the tension in the bow translated into pure silhouette.
The music is essential. There’s percussion—drumming that builds and recedes based on the dramatic arc—and there are singers who narrate the story, often including passages of sung dialogue. The combination of image and sound creates a kind of synesthetic experience where you’re not quite sure whether you’re seeing the story or hearing it into existence.
The tolpavakoothu tradition faces real challenges. The number of families practicing this form has declined sharply. The all-night performances are exhausting for audiences accustomed to entertainment in bite-sized portions. Tourism and documentation have changed the context in which these performances happen. Yet there’s also been a resurgence of interest, particularly among younger artists in Kerala who see tolpavakoothu as a form worth reviving and reimagining.
Yakshagana Gombeyata: Karnataka’s Rod Puppets that Mirror Live Theatre
In Karnataka, there’s a puppet tradition called yakshagana gombeyata (gombeyata means “doll play”), and it’s fascinating because it exists in such intimate relationship with yakshagana, the live theatrical form. If you understand yakshagana—the flamboyant, elaborately costumed classical theatre of Karnataka—then you understand gombeyata immediately. The puppets are miniature yakshagana dancers. They wear the same elaborate makeup, the same magnificent costumes, the same jewelry. They move with the same grace.
Gombeyata puppets are rod puppets, typically around two feet tall, manipulated from below or from the sides depending on the specific tradition. They’re carved with remarkable detail—the faces are painted with the distinctive yakshagana makeup, with its bold lines and mineral pigments. The costumes are miniature reproductions of yakshagana costumes, often using silk and gold thread.
The stories come from the epics and the Puranas, the same sources that yakshagana draws upon. A gombeyata performance might tell the story of the Ramayana, or an episode from the Mahabharata, or a tale from Krishna’s life. The drama is the same, the emotion is the same, but everything is scaled down and translated into the puppet form.
What’s distinctive about gombeyata is the way it demands a kind of physical intelligence from the puppeteers. They have to understand how a yakshagana character moves, what that movement expresses, how to convey emotion through gesture when the puppet’s face is painted and unmoving. Some of the finest gombeyata performers come from Kundapura in Udupi district, particularly from the village of Uppinakudru, where families have been making and performing gombeyata for generations.
I watched a gombeyata performance of the churning of the ocean—the famous Samudra Manthan episode from the Mahabharata—and was struck by how the technique creates a kind of abstraction that’s oddly powerful. The demons and gods moving in their stylized fashion, the rope being churned, the cosmic drama unfolding in miniature. There’s something almost Brechtian about it, the way the form’s artificiality becomes a kind of truth rather than an obstacle.
Putul Nach: Bengal and Odisha’s String Puppet Theatre
Head east to Bengal and you enter the world of danger putuls—rod puppets with articulated limbs that can move in complex, expressive ways. The name is believed to come from a particular family of puppeteers, or possibly from a story that was historically popular. The puppets are carved from wood, jointed with cloth, and manipulated by rods and strings that give them a range of motion that can seem almost uncanny.
Bengali putul nach often takes place at street level, with the audience gathered around. The puppeteers are typically from itinerant communities who travel from village to village, setting up in courtyards or marketplaces. The stories range from adaptations of classical texts to local legends, often with a good deal of contemporary commentary and humor worked in. These aren’t reverent performances of ancient texts; they’re living traditions that interact with their audiences in immediate, often witty ways.
In Odisha, you have kundhei—string puppets that are smaller and more delicate than the Bengali rod puppets, manipulated by strings in a way that superficially resembles kathputli but is entirely distinct in technique and aesthetic. The puppeteers of Odisha come from hereditary communities, many concentrated in villages like Nuapatna, which is considered the heart of kundhei tradition in India.
The stories in both Bengali putul nach and Odia kundhei often draw from the Ramayana, the Manasa Mangal (a local Bengalese classic), and local folklore. There’s a strong musical component—drums, flutes, the human voice—that accompanies the action. What strikes you watching these performances is the intimacy. These are street-level arts, close to the audience, involving dialogue and interaction. The puppeteers aren’t hidden away; they’re visible, sometimes even engaging with specific audience members.
Other Regional Traditions: The Wider Tapestry
Beyond these major forms, India has a remarkable array of other puppet traditions. Ravanachhaya in Karnataka is a shadow puppet form centered on stories of Ravana, performed with a particular aesthetic and musical accompaniment. Yampuri from Bihar involves rod puppets with a distinctive visual style. Suratdhar puppets from different regions each have their own character.
These traditions often exist in precarious circumstances, kept alive by a handful of dedicated practitioners and the occasional government documentation project. Yet they persist, evolving, adapting, finding new audiences, particularly in urban centers where cultural organizations and festivals create spaces for them to be performed and appreciated.
The Kathputli Colony Story: Displacement and Resilience
I keep coming back to Kathputli Colony because it’s such a visible illustration of what’s at stake when we talk about preserving puppet traditions. The colony wasn’t just a place; it was an ecosystem. There were workshops where puppets were made, courtyards where performances happened, schools where children learned the tradition, markets where tourists came to buy puppets and watch shows.
When the puppeteers were relocated to Dakshin Puri—about 20 kilometers from the original site—they lost that ecosystem. Some of them had been relocated to apartments in a housing complex far from the city center, without the commercial infrastructure that had supported their livelihoods. The puppet shops, the performance spaces, the tourist circuits—all of it dissolved.
The puppeteers fought. There were petitions, protests, legal battles. They argued—quite reasonably—that relocation without proper rehabilitation was a form of cultural erasure. They weren’t just losing a home; they were losing their ability to practice their craft in the way they’d always practiced it.
Some puppeteers adapted. Mohan Bhat, the man I watched perform in Jaisalmer, moved to Jaipur where he’s become well-known among tourists and cultural enthusiasts. He performs regularly at cultural centers and has even started teaching workshops. Others have gravitated toward the Kathputli cultural center that was established, somewhat belatedly, to help the displaced community. Still others have stepped away from the tradition entirely, pursuing other livelihoods.
The Kathputli Colony story matters because it reveals the vulnerability of these traditions. They’re not endangered because of a lack of artistic merit or audience interest. They’re vulnerable because of housing policy, urban development priorities, and the way that communities of hereditary artists are often marginalized in formal considerations of “cultural property.”
UNESCO, Government Efforts, and the Fight for Survival
There’s been significant institutional effort to document and preserve Indian puppet theatre, though these efforts have come somewhat late and with mixed results.
UNESCO has recognized several Indian puppet traditions as part of the “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.” This recognition brings a certain amount of prestige and some financial support, but it doesn’t necessarily address the underlying material conditions that allow traditions to thrive.
The Sangeet Natak Akademi, India’s national academy for the performing arts, has been instrumental in documenting various puppet traditions, sponsoring performances at national festivals, and providing grants to individual practitioners. Their annual awards have sometimes recognized puppet artists, bringing them visibility and financial support.
Organizations like the Ishara International Puppet Trust have worked to document, archive, and promote Indian puppet theatre. They’ve created spaces where different puppet traditions can be performed, brought puppeteers together for workshops and exchanges, and worked to find new audiences for these traditional forms. The Dhaatu Puppet Theatre in Bangalore has been similarly committed to creating performance opportunities and providing a platform for puppet artists.
Yet funding remains precarious. A puppeteer who’s trained for a lifetime in their craft might earn just enough to survive from performing and teaching. The traditional apprenticeship model—where knowledge is passed from parent to child—has been disrupted by economic pressures that push young people toward more lucrative livelihoods.
There’s also been institutional documentation work—video recordings, photographs, written descriptions—aimed at creating a permanent record of these traditions even as they evolve and change. This is valuable work, though there’s always a tension between documentation (which can feel like preservation in amber) and the living, breathing reality of traditions that are meant to be performed and shared with living audiences.
Where to See Puppet Theatre in India Today
If you want to experience Indian puppet theatre, you have several options depending on where you are and how deep you want to go.
Rajasthan: The original Kathputli Colony area in Delhi still has some performance spaces and shops, though it’s much diminished from its heyday. In Jaipur, there are several centers where kathputli performances happen regularly. Jaisalmer and other desert towns sometimes have street performances, particularly in tourist areas. If you’re serious about seeing real kathputli in an authentic context, traveling to villages in Rajasthan during festival season offers the best chance.
Tamil Nadu: The Thanjavur district is the heartland of bommalattam. Some performances happen regularly at cultural organizations in the town of Thanjavur itself. The Kalakshetra in Chennai occasionally programs puppet performances.
Kerala: Tolpavakoothu performances happen at temples during festival seasons, particularly at the Kodungalloor Bhagavathi Temple during Cochin’s season. Tourist information centers can often provide information about when performances are scheduled.
Karnataka: Yakshagana gombeyata performances are less common in regular circuits, but the Ranga Shankara theatre in Bangalore occasionally programs them. Kundapura in Udupi district is a pilgrimage site for serious enthusiasts.
Bengal and Odisha: The Kathputli and Suratdhar traditions persist in villages, though performances for non-local audiences are less common. In Calcutta, some heritage organizations occasionally arrange special performances. Nuapatna in Odisha remains a center for kundhei tradition.
National Festivals: The National Theatre Festival, which rotates locations, sometimes includes puppet theatre programming. The Dhaatu Puppet Festival in Bangalore is specifically dedicated to puppet theatre and draws performers from across India and internationally.
Honestly, the best way to see living puppet theatre is to develop relationships with people who know the tradition—tour guides, cultural activists, festival organizers—and be willing to travel to smaller towns and villages where these performances still happen as part of regular cultural life rather than as tourist attractions.
The Future of Puppet Theatre in India
There’s a temptation, when writing about traditional art forms, to end on a note of lament—to suggest that everything is disappearing, that we’re witnessing the slow death of magnificent traditions. I’m resistant to that narrative, partly because it’s not accurate and partly because it’s disempowering.
Yes, the number of puppeteers is smaller than it was fifty years ago. Yes, young people are less likely to apprentice into these traditions. Yes, performance opportunities have declined and economic pressures are real.
But puppet theatre in India isn’t disappearing. It’s transforming. Young puppeteers are finding new audiences through festivals and performance centers. Families that abandoned the tradition fifty years ago are having their children learn it anew. Video documentation is creating a kind of archive that makes it possible for traditions to be revived even if the living chain of transmission is broken.
There’s also been a kind of renewal of interest in puppet theatre among urban artists and theatre-makers who see these traditions not as museum pieces but as vital artistic forms with things to teach about theatre itself. Some of the most interesting contemporary puppet work in India involves collaborations between traditional practitioners and contemporary artists, creating hybrid forms that maintain respect for tradition while opening it to new possibilities.
What these traditions need—what keeps them alive—is not reverence but engagement. They need audiences willing to sit on dusty ground and watch a wooden puppet dance. They need young people willing to spend months learning a craft that might not make them wealthy. They need communities that value storytelling enough to support the people who tell stories through puppets.
When I watch a kathputli puppet dance, I’m watching something that connects me to centuries of storytelling tradition. I’m watching a technique so refined that it’s invisible—the puppeteer’s hands seem to disappear and the puppet simply lives. I’m watching a form of theatre that requires nothing but human skill and wooden craft, yet creates something that moves audiences to laughter and tears.
That’s worth fighting for. That’s worth seeing. That’s the reason these traditions continue, despite everything: because the magic they create is real, and it’s worth preserving not as a museum artifact but as a living, breathing, evolving practice.
The next time you’re in India, if you get the chance to see puppet theatre—any form of it—take it. Sit in the audience. Watch the wooden faces in the lamplight. Let the storytelling pull you in. That moment when the puppet comes alive, when you forget you’re watching an object and start seeing a character, a personality, a presence—that’s what keeps these traditions alive. That moment, replicated across thousands of audiences, across centuries, across every region of this vast country, is the true preservation of Indian puppet theatre.