Arna Jharna Museum

About

Arna Jharna Museum (or Arna Jharna – The Thar Desert Museum) is a folk museum located in a village called Moklawas near Jodhpur in Rajasthan. The museum opened in 2000 under the aegis of Rupayan Sansthan. It is a Museum of Folk Culture envisioned by eminent folklorist and ethno-musicologist, Padma Bhushan Komal Kothari (1929 – 2004). Arna Jharna literally means Forest and Spring. Its location showcases the terrain of Marwar region through rocky outcrops, desert cacti, and ravines. The museum captures the ethnography of Rajasthan through everyday objects that reflect ecology, intangible heritage and cultural practices of the region and its communities. Kothari had stated that this museum will not house antique artifacts, precious curios, or objects of high monetary value. Many facets of knowledge and skills of a culture are kept alive by communities by passing it from one generation to another. Thus, the museum displays objects to explain cultural processes, community linkages, and regional contexts. It is also called a living museum where the objects are part of the daily lives of common people.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.