The voice that carried Mahabharata to the world: remembering Teejan Bai

Teejan Bai Chhattisgarh’s Pandavani legend who turned village folk art into a global phenomenon, passes at 70.

There are artists who perform a tradition, and there are artists who becomes it. Teejan Bai undoubtedly belongs to second category. For over six decades her name was inseparable from Pandavani- the centuries old Chhattisgarhi art of singing and enacted tales from the Mahabharata- and on 5 July 2026 that voice fell silent when she passed away at AIIMS Raipur at aged 70, after a prolonged illness.

Her death has drawn tributes from across the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called it “Irreplaceable loss” writing that she has given Chhattisgarh folk “a unique identity across the world through her magnificent performances.” Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai described Teejan Bai’s passing as an irreplaceable loss, not only to Chhattisgarh’s folk tradition, but for the entire country. For a woman who was once expelled by her own community for singing.

A voice born of rebellion

Teejan Bai was born on 8 August 1956 in Ganiyari village a small village near Bhilai Chhattisgarh’s Durg district belonging to the Pardhi Scheduled Tribe. The eldest of five siblings. She grew up listening to her maternal grandfather, Brijlal Pardhi, recite the Mahabharata as rendered by the Chhattisgarhi writer Sabal Singh Chauhan. Something in those verses root in her early life- she memorized long passages of epic almost by instinct, later refining her art under the Umed Singh Deshmukh.

At just 13, she gave her first performance in the neighbouring village of Chandrakhuri for a fee of Ten Rupees. What made he moment historic was not the venue or pay but the posture. Pandavani as a tradition dictated, was to be sung by a woman seated, in the Vedamati style. Teejan Bai stood, she sung loud guttural voice, commanding voice in a Kapalik style that was long reserved for men. It was an act of quiet rebellion that would define her entire career.

The cost of rebellion was steep, married at 12, she was later expelled by the Paridhi tribe for singing Pandavani as a woman. she built herself a small hut and started living on her own, borrowing utensils and food from neighbours, yet she never left her singing, which eventually paid off for her. She escaped her first marriage and she was married twice and later become a grandmother- but Pandavani never once left her side.

From village stage to the world

Her breakthrough came when theatre veteran Habib Tanvir noticed her extraordinary talent and helped bring her to the wider audience. Soon she was performing before Prime Minister Indira Gandhi a moment that opened a door to national recognition. She went on to feature in Shyam Benegal’s acclaimed Doordarshan TV series Bharat Ek Khoj performing key Mahabharata sequence that introduced her artistry to millions of television viewers.

International acclaim followed. Over a decade, Teejan Bai carried Pandavani to stages across America, Australia, Europe turning what had been a hyperlocal folk tradition into an art form celebrated to a global cultural stage. Audiences who had never heard of the Mahabharata, let alone Chhattisgarh, found themselves transfixed by her single retelling- the Tambura become her only prop, sometimes to personify a gada, mace of Bhima, or Arjuna’s bow or chariot, while at other times it becomes the hair of queen Draupadi, depending on the scene demanded. Among her most celebrated set of pieces were the Draupadi Cheerharan, Dushasan Vadh and Mahabharat Yudh and the climactic battle between Bhishma and Arjuna.

A lifetime of Honors

Recognition, when it came, came in full measure. Teejan Bai was awarded the Padma Shri in 1988, and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1995, Padma Bhushan in 2003 and Padma Vibhushan – India’s second highest civilian award in 2019. She also received an honorary D.Litt from Bilaspur University, the M.S. Subbulakshmi Centenary Award in 2016, and Japan's Fukuoka Prize, among numerous other honours across a career that spanned nearly six decades.

A legacy larger than one life

Teejan Bai story, in many ways the story of modern India’s cultural feminism told through her defiant voice- a woman who was cast out for singing and who lived to be honored by the nation as one of its finest cultural ambassadors. She didn’t simply preserve Pandavani, she expanded it, proving that a folk tradition rooted in one small Chhattisgarh village could speak, unaltered in its power, to the world.