Rod puppet has a main rod to hold the puppets

Rod puppet has a main rod to hold the puppets and two thin Rods attached with two hands. These two rods also hold by other hand of puppeteer. It is operated from below stage.

Bil Baird in his books ‘The art of the puppet says, “Bengal had created a rod puppet style which I believe moved eastward with Hinduism and became the wayang golek (Java) performed with three dimensional wooden figures that are manipulated with rods”.

So India has a long tradition of rod puppets. Now rod puppets are only seen in west Bengal, Orissa and Bihar.