Dasâvatâra Ganjifa
120 playing cards

India has a long tradition of making hand-painted Ganjifa playing cards. The cards shown on this page come from Orissa (East India) and were painted by local artisan Banamali Mahapatra, whose family has been painting Ganjifa cards for five generations. This is a 10-suited deck, called dasâvatâra (which means "ten colors"). Most Ganjifa cards are circular, but sometimes they are made square, rectangular or oval. Other common Ganjifa decks feature 8 suits (96 cards) or 12 suits (144 cards). Some larger decks have even been made with as much as 20 or 24 suits (but that is rather unusual).

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Ganjifa patterns vary depending on what region (or even city) they come from. However, in general, ganjifa decks have 12 cards per suit: low cards from 1 to 10, plus 2 court cards, the king and the minister (sometimes called adviser or general).

Old expensive Ganjifa cards were made in ivory or tortoise shell. Nowadays, still hand painted, the cards are usually made from layers of pressed paper or from layers of cloth glued together (as is this deck, from Orissa).

Each Ganjifa card is considered a unique work of art and the art of making hand-painted Ganjifa cards is rapidly dying. It takes a skilled artisan 2 to 3 weeks to make a complete deck. Still, some ignorant Westerners have been known to use them as coasters.

For more historic information, also check our History of Playing Cards page.