The village mural painting tradition is a matriarchal one, and for this reason it is a sacred tradition in an essentially original matriarchal indigenous order. The art is made by married women (Devi) during the marriage and harvest seasons. Young girls learn the art from their mothers and aunts. 

The marriage art is called Khovar after the Bridal room and bridegroom, and relates to an ancestral cave dwelling origin (kho=cave, var=bridegroom) related to the painted caves of the Mirzapur, Vindhyan, and Jharkhand complexes called Khobar. It is full of plant forms and fertility symbols which are related to the Calcolithic mandalas in the rockart, and wild animal forms tracing their genesis to an earlier Mesolithic period found in the rockart. It is a matriarchal and shamanistic tradition, and the Godna or tattoo whose motifs are found in the prehistoric rockart are made by the woman of the Malhar tribe (Godnakari) of metal casters as a protective emblem. The Malhar metal caster practices also a sacred artform in metal casting, an essentially Chalcolithic tradition. The highlight of Khovar art is the painted walls of the marriage house to welcome the bridegroom who is sometimes compared to Indra on an elephant, with decorations of the wild animals of the forest who are the companions and plants symbolizing fertility.

The harvest art of Sohrai derives its nomenclature from the Mundaric word Soroi , meaning ‘to whip, or beat’, relating to cattle, and finds its root in Soro,  meaning ‘to close the door’, and thus points to the first domestication of cattle in a Mundaric society. Its manifestations directly derive from the rockart in which the 'Tree of Life', a favourite West Asian and Indus symbol, may be traced to the rockart of the pre-mesolithic in Hazaribagh rockart (Saraiya). The highlight  of Sohrai art is the welcome of the cattle which are taken to the jungle on the morning of the festival day, and at noon brought in over the aripans made on the floor with rice gruel by the Devis in the rockart forms of (Khandar). the head which consists of a clay cone with a sprig of latlatiya grass represents Devi, and the welcome aripan is drawn in the form of cattle hoves similar to the rockart. We see here the earliest worship of cattle dating back to the beginnings of agriculture in India.

A song goes,
“Where was the cow born ?
Under the Sakhua tree the cow was born.
Why was the cow born ?
The cow was born to give strength to the earth.”

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Photo Gallery#1
Painted Houses of Hazaribagh