B'haut

B. Solvyns’s 288 coloured etchings were published in four volumes titled Les Hindous (‘The Hindus’) between 1808 and 1812 in Paris, an encyclopaedic vision of the ‘customs, costumes and ceremonies’ of the people of eastern India at the end of the eighteenth century. Here, he presents a B’haut (pronounced ‘bhat’), a bard who would carry forward stories orally from generation to generation.