The Bharata Major Arcana Tarot by Sunish Chabba and Ishan Trivedi
Posted: 20 May 2018, 13:57
The Bharata Major Arcana Tarot is the creation of Sunish Chabba, a native from the Himalaya Region living now in Australia, and the illustrator Ishan Trivedi. Many reviews online praise the high quality of the deck.
It came wrapped in so much bubble wrap that it was protected perfectly - not even a tiny nick on the box! The tuckbox is very nice - a peacock motif, silver letters and a very pleasant smooth, stable cardboard material. The inner part of the box is decorated with a shining silver pattern. High attention to detail!
The different hues of blue are totally clear, highly saturated and vibrant. On the backside, there is a wheel motif accentuated in orange and red.
The peacocks and gilded letters are embossed, i.e., the box doesn't only look sumptuous, it also feels that way.
The booklet, box and card backs fit together perfectly. The cardbacks have the same motif as the back of the box.
Now let's look at the cards.
It's a majors only deck so the stack is not high but it's exquisitely beautiful. I can't really describe the gilding - it's the opposite of garish, it's noticeably golden but warm, gentle and unobtrusive.
In addition to the majors, the deck provides the reader with four Pages.
You can use these Pages as significators - Wands for Fire signs, Cups for Water signs etc, or according to which element the querent prefers or feels close to right now.
But you can also use the Pages to signify or to determine the kind of question, the topic of the reading - Wands for questions of career and success, Cups for emotions and love, Swords for conflict resolution, and Pentacles for questions of health and wealth.
The Pages always have a taste of the Fool, they're at the start of their journey, and I feel that of all the court cards, they're the most suitable addition here as significators - all the Knights, Queens and Kings were Pages once, and as querents, we're all trying to look forwards just like the Pages do. So I'm very happy with these cards - I only wish the artists would create the rest of the minors, too! As tarot cards, not playing cards.
But back to the cards.
They're borderless and LOVE borderless decks. The energies from one card flow over to the next. And this deck bursts with contained energy, you can see the synergy between the cards. Borderless cards are always easier to read with for me because they turn into a story board. The Bharata cards are no exception, you can feel a story starting - even though these are majors and represent much more than just a situation with developing dynamics.
The whole deck is filled with people and colours. The only exception is the Wheel of Fortune with its restrained colours and graphic character. It sticks out, it catches the eye, like an attention! sign that helps organize the reading.
You can see that the cards are not "colour coded" according to elements - each card is like a painting in strong colours.
I don't know anything about Indian painting so I asked the artist for more information about the style and the inspiration for these cards. It's the Kishangarh style, and it's beautiful.
A preference for profile view, attention to detail, elegant lines and clear colours - these miniatures remind me of some Persian miniatures or medieval manuscript illuminations. When my husband saw the deck, he said, "it reminds me of Disney's Aladdin movie", and since that movie is visually inspired by Persian miniatures, that's not even as ridiculous as it sounds...
When artists work on small spaces like miniatures and illuminations, the result often is concentrated, like an essence of life, and that's ideal for tarot. Early tarot deck were also like hand-painted miniatures, the Visconti for example. So this is a very good choice for tarot medium.
We know already that tarot archetypes appear in the lives of the Beatles, Greek myths, fairy tales, Nordic sagas, the tales of King Arthur, Hollywood, Weimar Berlin, vampires, saints and daily life in New York - deck creators are a creative bunch
I'm especially impressed when deck creators from the Far East, so far removed from the Italian Renaissance roots of the tarot, and coming from such a rich culture themselves, feel stirred to create a tarot (or Lenormand) deck. In my personal collection, I have the Maria Celia Tarot by a Filipino artist, Silhouettes Tarot by a Chinese artist, Dreaming Way Tarot by a Korean artist, Four Heavenly Kings and Roots of Asia (both Thai artists), and the Turkish Deste Katina deck. They're all totally different and all of them fascinating as bridges between cultures. I see Benebell Wen's fantastic book and blog as bridges between East and West, too.
While I'm fascinating by this mix of Eastern and Western motifs, I'm aware that I miss a lot of content and hints. I'm sure that for the artist, each pose and hand gesture has meaning - it's a code I can't read, an iconographic puzzle I can't solve. But I know from other decks that it's perfectly possible to read with a deck without knowing every morsel of esoteric information present in the picture - you don't need a doctorate in astrology and kabbalah in order to read with the Thoth, after all. And I know the difference between Hierophant, Hermit and High Priestess - my tarot knowledge helps me where the
One thing I noticed immediately is that some of the cards "belong together".
This is most evident in the Emperor and Empress.
Sometimes they do get along, sometimes they don't...
The intense use of profiles in this deck demands our attention to directions and eye contact in this deck. We saw in the Kishangarh examples how important profiles are, and in the deck, people are shown either frontally or in profile. This is very different from Western art since the Renaissance - since Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, the preferred facial direction in Western art has been the 3/4 view.
The three virtue cards - that lion is cute In many decks, the virtues are quite static - here they look dynamic. The backgrounds are especially beautiful and expressive here (and in Temperance and Justice we have 3/4 faces...)
Magician and World balance something radiant -
the Fool and Hanged Man have something in common, too, at least visually, in the juxtaposition of figure and background. The Hanged Man seems to be juggling with his body.
And look at Death and the Devil - very different from the RWS but very expressive.
For me, the high point of the deck are the celestial cards.
They're absolutely striking and wonderful.
Just look at that face! I come from a culture where the Sun is female and the Moon male, but I'm of course familiar with the female Moon and male Sun allegories and gods in the Classical tradition, and I love these images.
The inspiration for Sun, Moon and Star came, according to the artist, from the Karwa Chauth festival and the imagery connected with it. It's fascinating, and I'm embarrassed I didn't know anything about it.
The artist was also kind to send me some of the sketches for the deck. It's very interesting to compare them with the finished cards. I took this comparison of sketches and finished cards from the World of Playing Cards review of this deck.
Just look what the colours add! But some of the spontaneity of the hand sketches gets lost when finished digitally. The perfection and smoothness of digital art have been discussed concerning other decks already - is a digitally rendered deck just a sterile "artificial" product or is the computer a legitimate artistic tool? I think that by now, this discussion should be put to sleep. Digital art has proved itself. And if you look at the perfect smoothness of the Kishangarh miniatures - I'm pretty sure those artists would have loved to experiment with a digital brush!
The Lovers card is especially beautiful.
It was inspired by a painting from the 18th century, Bani Thani by Nihâl Chand, showing the king Savant King with his beloved, Bani Thani.
What a long review!
For those who ask about the card stock - let me answer in the words of Sunish himself:
And the booklet:
A beautiful leporello that fits perfectly into the box.
My only little point of criticism with this perfect parcel: the print in the booklet is tiny and for me really hard to read. It sits beautifully on the page but a larger font would have been a nice gesture.
The text is short and basic but since this deck follows the RWS tradition, any book of tarot meanings and any experience with the RWS will help get you on your way. For anyone but total beginners, you can read with this deck out of the box - and even total beginners will find the images expressive enough to get an idea the energies at work in their lives at the moment.
So, how does it read?
Perfectly well. I asked questions and got answers. Since this is a majors only deck, I wouldn't "waste" it on trivial questions - although it has a lightness of touch that would probably also serve you well in a trivial matter
I wish there was a complete deck, not a deck of playing cards but a "real" scenic RWS - and a booklet that gives some hints about motifs, gestures, symbols and other elements in these cards.
My deck is a review copy but I wrote what I think - just as I did in all my reviews. I confess that I knew I'd love the deck and was overjoyed when asked to review it :icon_redface: and I'm very happy with it.
It came wrapped in so much bubble wrap that it was protected perfectly - not even a tiny nick on the box! The tuckbox is very nice - a peacock motif, silver letters and a very pleasant smooth, stable cardboard material. The inner part of the box is decorated with a shining silver pattern. High attention to detail!
The different hues of blue are totally clear, highly saturated and vibrant. On the backside, there is a wheel motif accentuated in orange and red.
The peacocks and gilded letters are embossed, i.e., the box doesn't only look sumptuous, it also feels that way.
The booklet, box and card backs fit together perfectly. The cardbacks have the same motif as the back of the box.
Now let's look at the cards.
It's a majors only deck so the stack is not high but it's exquisitely beautiful. I can't really describe the gilding - it's the opposite of garish, it's noticeably golden but warm, gentle and unobtrusive.
In addition to the majors, the deck provides the reader with four Pages.
You can use these Pages as significators - Wands for Fire signs, Cups for Water signs etc, or according to which element the querent prefers or feels close to right now.
But you can also use the Pages to signify or to determine the kind of question, the topic of the reading - Wands for questions of career and success, Cups for emotions and love, Swords for conflict resolution, and Pentacles for questions of health and wealth.
The Pages always have a taste of the Fool, they're at the start of their journey, and I feel that of all the court cards, they're the most suitable addition here as significators - all the Knights, Queens and Kings were Pages once, and as querents, we're all trying to look forwards just like the Pages do. So I'm very happy with these cards - I only wish the artists would create the rest of the minors, too! As tarot cards, not playing cards.
But back to the cards.
They're borderless and LOVE borderless decks. The energies from one card flow over to the next. And this deck bursts with contained energy, you can see the synergy between the cards. Borderless cards are always easier to read with for me because they turn into a story board. The Bharata cards are no exception, you can feel a story starting - even though these are majors and represent much more than just a situation with developing dynamics.
The whole deck is filled with people and colours. The only exception is the Wheel of Fortune with its restrained colours and graphic character. It sticks out, it catches the eye, like an attention! sign that helps organize the reading.
You can see that the cards are not "colour coded" according to elements - each card is like a painting in strong colours.
I don't know anything about Indian painting so I asked the artist for more information about the style and the inspiration for these cards. It's the Kishangarh style, and it's beautiful.
A preference for profile view, attention to detail, elegant lines and clear colours - these miniatures remind me of some Persian miniatures or medieval manuscript illuminations. When my husband saw the deck, he said, "it reminds me of Disney's Aladdin movie", and since that movie is visually inspired by Persian miniatures, that's not even as ridiculous as it sounds...
When artists work on small spaces like miniatures and illuminations, the result often is concentrated, like an essence of life, and that's ideal for tarot. Early tarot deck were also like hand-painted miniatures, the Visconti for example. So this is a very good choice for tarot medium.
We know already that tarot archetypes appear in the lives of the Beatles, Greek myths, fairy tales, Nordic sagas, the tales of King Arthur, Hollywood, Weimar Berlin, vampires, saints and daily life in New York - deck creators are a creative bunch
I'm especially impressed when deck creators from the Far East, so far removed from the Italian Renaissance roots of the tarot, and coming from such a rich culture themselves, feel stirred to create a tarot (or Lenormand) deck. In my personal collection, I have the Maria Celia Tarot by a Filipino artist, Silhouettes Tarot by a Chinese artist, Dreaming Way Tarot by a Korean artist, Four Heavenly Kings and Roots of Asia (both Thai artists), and the Turkish Deste Katina deck. They're all totally different and all of them fascinating as bridges between cultures. I see Benebell Wen's fantastic book and blog as bridges between East and West, too.
While I'm fascinating by this mix of Eastern and Western motifs, I'm aware that I miss a lot of content and hints. I'm sure that for the artist, each pose and hand gesture has meaning - it's a code I can't read, an iconographic puzzle I can't solve. But I know from other decks that it's perfectly possible to read with a deck without knowing every morsel of esoteric information present in the picture - you don't need a doctorate in astrology and kabbalah in order to read with the Thoth, after all. And I know the difference between Hierophant, Hermit and High Priestess - my tarot knowledge helps me where the
One thing I noticed immediately is that some of the cards "belong together".
This is most evident in the Emperor and Empress.
Sometimes they do get along, sometimes they don't...
The intense use of profiles in this deck demands our attention to directions and eye contact in this deck. We saw in the Kishangarh examples how important profiles are, and in the deck, people are shown either frontally or in profile. This is very different from Western art since the Renaissance - since Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, the preferred facial direction in Western art has been the 3/4 view.
The three virtue cards - that lion is cute
In many decks, the virtues are quite static - here they look dynamic. The backgrounds are especially beautiful and expressive here (and in Temperance and Justice we have 3/4 faces...)Magician and World balance something radiant -
the Fool and Hanged Man have something in common, too, at least visually, in the juxtaposition of figure and background. The Hanged Man seems to be juggling with his body.
And look at Death and the Devil - very different from the RWS but very expressive.
For me, the high point of the deck are the celestial cards.
They're absolutely striking and wonderful.
Just look at that face! I come from a culture where the Sun is female and the Moon male, but I'm of course familiar with the female Moon and male Sun allegories and gods in the Classical tradition, and I love these images.
The inspiration for Sun, Moon and Star came, according to the artist, from the Karwa Chauth festival and the imagery connected with it. It's fascinating, and I'm embarrassed I didn't know anything about it.
The artist was also kind to send me some of the sketches for the deck. It's very interesting to compare them with the finished cards. I took this comparison of sketches and finished cards from the World of Playing Cards review of this deck.
Just look what the colours add! But some of the spontaneity of the hand sketches gets lost when finished digitally. The perfection and smoothness of digital art have been discussed concerning other decks already - is a digitally rendered deck just a sterile "artificial" product or is the computer a legitimate artistic tool? I think that by now, this discussion should be put to sleep. Digital art has proved itself. And if you look at the perfect smoothness of the Kishangarh miniatures - I'm pretty sure those artists would have loved to experiment with a digital brush!
The Lovers card is especially beautiful.
It was inspired by a painting from the 18th century, Bani Thani by Nihâl Chand, showing the king Savant King with his beloved, Bani Thani.
What a long review!
For those who ask about the card stock - let me answer in the words of Sunish himself:
I have to confess that I'm no connaisseur of card stock but I know when it feels good in my hands. And this one does. The linnen structure is subtle and the cards feel absolutely smooth. They don't stick, they're flexible, and you can look at the review videos posted in the first link I gave above - I'm not able to make cards fly and flow but I love to look at others doing it!I've utilized my knowledge and experience gained during my previous playing card projects in Bharata tarot project. It has one of the highest quality Casino grade European card stock. Cards have a unique and exclusive finish known as Ornate which makes them quite easy to handle & shuffle. This linen like finish has been made entirely in-house rather than simply using an already embossed card stock which might not interest Tarot readers & collectors and they might not appreciate it as much as I'd like them to do.
And the booklet:
A beautiful leporello that fits perfectly into the box.
My only little point of criticism with this perfect parcel: the print in the booklet is tiny and for me really hard to read. It sits beautifully on the page but a larger font would have been a nice gesture.
The text is short and basic but since this deck follows the RWS tradition, any book of tarot meanings and any experience with the RWS will help get you on your way. For anyone but total beginners, you can read with this deck out of the box - and even total beginners will find the images expressive enough to get an idea the energies at work in their lives at the moment.
So, how does it read?
Perfectly well. I asked questions and got answers. Since this is a majors only deck, I wouldn't "waste" it on trivial questions - although it has a lightness of touch that would probably also serve you well in a trivial matter
I wish there was a complete deck, not a deck of playing cards but a "real" scenic RWS - and a booklet that gives some hints about motifs, gestures, symbols and other elements in these cards.
My deck is a review copy but I wrote what I think - just as I did in all my reviews. I confess that I knew I'd love the deck and was overjoyed when asked to review it :icon_redface: and I'm very happy with it.