Dhokra: Casting Bronze the Way It Was Cast Millennia Ago
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Dhokra metal casting uses a technique known as lost wax casting, a method practised across parts of central and eastern India for several thousand years with remarkably little change to its basic process. Figures are first modelled in wax over a clay core, then coated in further layers of clay before being fired.
During firing, the wax melts and drains away, leaving a hollow mould into which molten metal, typically brass, is poured to take the exact shape the wax once held. Once cooled, the outer clay layer is broken away to reveal the finished piece, meaning every dhokra casting is inherently one of a kind rather than mass produced.
Traditional dhokra artisans, often belonging to specific tribal and nomadic communities across states such as Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal, produce figures depicting animals, deities and scenes from rural life, their surfaces textured with fine wax threads pressed onto the original model before casting. This texture remains one of the craft's most recognisable features.
Because each piece requires its mould to be destroyed in the making, dhokra resists the kind of scaling up that has affected many other Indian crafts. That constraint has helped preserve its handmade character even as demand has grown, with artisans continuing to work in small family workshops much as earlier generations did.