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Profession of Niranjan Mahawar
Being a self-taught ethnologist of Chattisgarh, Niranjan Mahawar has studied the life and art of the Bastar tribe.Niranjan Mahavar earned a postgraduate degree in economics from Sagar University in 1960 and in 1962 his family business went to Bastar for the care of Rice Mill. He was attracted to the life-style of tribals and started documenting on various aspects of tribal arts and culture. Along with this, he started working on tribal myths, folk literature and various lifestyles. As a tribal expert in the executive committee of Madhya Pradesh Tribal Folk Council, he remained a member for eight years. The Council has also served eight years of work in the Advisory Board of Quarterly Magazine published by the Council for 20 years and as a specialist in the folk tribal culture of the South-Central Area Cultural Center. At the age of 25, he began an unusual collection of combs. And till the age of 57, he has collected over 1600 combs. Along with it, they contain the information about the culture and social meaning for tribals. The motive behind collecting the tribal art is to understand the heritage they embody.

Importance of Tribal Art in different states
The culture of crafting and wearing combs in the hair, is still continued by the tribals like Gonds of Madhya Pradesh and the Bhils of Rajasthan.

Bastar, has a rich history surrounding the Mahawar's Comb. There are unique shapes of combs like flowers or birds in flight and they were popular among the Bhils. The men's of the tribe maintained the comb moustaches. Beautiful mango shaped motif is engraved on the combs of Gwarias of Ajmer. Combs were also considered as a part of Shringar.

Combs can give insights in understanding inborn traditions and customs. This type of research should help historians to throw fresh light on it.

Books written by Niranjan Mahawar
Mahawar has worked on tribal myths, folk literature and various lifestyles. Based on that work he created four books on tribal and folk arts, eight on the folk drama, tribal studies, four monographs.

Niranjan Mahawar has written many books on tribal art and folk culture such as "Pandwani Mahabharat Ki Ek Lok Natya Shaily", "Chhattisgarh Ki Shilpkala", "Lokrang Chattisgarh", "Arts and Crafts of Chattisgarh", Performing Arts of Chattisgarh","Bastar and Bronzes: Tribal Religion and Arts "and so on.