Bahi

A red clothbound book, stitched in bold white thread and creased into columns, the Bahi is a familiar sight in the markets and trading houses of Rajasthan and Gujarat. Known as the Bahi Khata, this traditional Indian craft is a handbound accounting ledger whose design and ritual use have shaped the business culture of western India for centuries. The Bahi’s distinctive red cover, bordered with striped niwar tape, and its folded yellow and white pages, mark it as both a practical tool and a sacred object, still present in family businesses and festive rituals today.

The origins of the Bahi Khata trace back over two thousand years to the double-entry bookkeeping systems developed in Asia. Historically, these ledgers served as the backbone of financial record-keeping for merchant communities, particularly among Hindu traders in Rajasthan and Gujarat. The Bahi was revered not just as a ledger but as a symbol of prosperity, with its first page often inscribed with invocations to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, and adorned with auspicious symbols like the swastika and “Shree” written in pyramid style. Production of Bahis is seasonal, peaking around Diwali and the start of the financial year, when new books are purchased and ritually inaugurated.

The making of a Bahi is a blend of handcraft and simple machinery. Artisans begin by cutting and folding paper—either handmade from Jaipur or machine-made from Saharanpur—into equal sections called sal, each fold marking a column for credits and debits. The covers are fashioned from red cotton cloth, stitched into a sleeve to hold a cardboard core, then machine-sewn with the signature white curvilinear stitches. The edges are reinforced with colorful niwar tape to prevent fraying, and the assembled book is tied with a cotton rope. Pages may be machine-creased for columns, but the final assembly and binding often remain manual, requiring skill with needle, thread, and tools like the ari punch.

Today, Bahi makers are concentrated in cities like Udaipur, Sanganer, and Delhi’s Chawri Bazaar, with much of the labor performed by women supplementing household incomes through seasonal work. While computerized accounting has largely replaced manual ledgers in urban businesses, the Bahi persists as a ritual object during Diwali and as a specialty item for tourists, artists, and collectors. Contemporary Bahis feature a variety of covers—leather, zari, silk, or printed cotton—and papers ranging from handmade floral sheets to rice paper, reflecting adaptation to new markets and uses.

The Bahi stands out for its ritual significance, structural ingenuity, and visual identity. Its red cover symbolizes good luck, while the hand-stitched binding and folded columns offer a tactile, organized approach to record-keeping. The craft’s continued presence in festivals and its reinvention as journals and sketchbooks position it as both a heritage product and a niche artisanal good in today’s market.            
PHOTO CREDITS: GATHA.COM