The folklore of India encompasses the folklore of the nation of India and the Indian subcontinent. India is an ethnically and religiously diverse country. Given this diversity, it is difficult to generalize the vast folklore of India as a unit.[citation needed]
Although India is a Hindu-majority country, with more than three-fourths of the population identifying themselves as Hindus, there is no single, unified, and all-pervading concept of identity present in it. Various heterogeneous traditions, numerous regional cultures and different religions to grow and flourish here. Folk religion in Hinduism may explain the rationale behind local religious practices, and contain local myths that explain the customs or rituals. However, folklore goes beyond religious or supernatural beliefs and practices, and encompasses the entire body of social tradition whose chief vehicle of transmission is oral or outside institutional channels.[citation needed]
Folk art of India
[1] The folk and tribal arts of India speak volumes about the country's rich heritage.[2] Art forms in India have been exquisite and explicit. Folk art forms include various schools of art like the Mughal School, Rajasthani School, Nakashi art School etc. Each school has its distinct style of colour combinations or figures and its features. Other popular folk art forms include Madhubani paintings from Bihar, Kangra painting from Himachal Pradesh and Warli painting from Maharashtra. Tanjore paintings from South India incorporate real gold into their paintings. Local fairs, festivals, deities and heroes (warriors) play a vital role in this art form. In history the arts were made by upper caste but now they are famous worldwide.[citation needed]
The culture of India, broken down into five main geographical regions
Map illustrating regional cultural frontiers and areas, and their stability and historical permanency
Some famous folk and tribal arts of India include:
India possesses a large body of heroic ballads and epic poetry preserved in oral tradition, both in Sanskrit and the various vernacular languages of India. One such oral epic, telling the story of Pabuji, has been collected by Dr. John Smith from Rajasthan; it is a long poem in the Rajasthani language, traditionally told by professional story tellers, known as Bhopas, who deliver it in front of a tapestry that depicts the characters of the story, and functions as a portable temple, accompanied by a ravanhattho fiddle. The title character was a historical figure, a Rajput prince, who has been deified in Rajasthan.
Indian folklorists during the last thirty years have substantially contributed to the study of folklore. Devendra Satyarthi, Krishna Dev Upadyhayaya, Prafulla Dutta Goswami, Kunja Bihari Dash, Ashutosh Bhatacharya and many more senior folklorists have contributed for the study of folklore. But it is during the 1970s that some folklorists studied in US universities and trained up themselves with the modern theories and methods of folklore research and set a new trend of folklore study in India. Especially, South Indian universities advocated for folklore as a discipline in the universities and hundreds of scholars trained up on folklore. A.K. Ramanujan was the noted folklorist to analyse folklore from Indian context.[citation needed]
Study of folklore was strengthened by two stremas (sicsic); one is Finnish folklorist Lauri Honko and another is Peter J. Claus of American folklore. These two folklorists conducted their field work on Epic of Siri and led the Indian folklorists to the new folklore study. The Central Institute of Indian Languages has played a major role in promoting folklore studies in India to explore another reality of Indian culture.[citation needed]
Recently scholars such as Chitrasen Pasayat, M. D. Muthukumaraswamy, Vivek Rai, Jawaharlal Handoo, Birendranath Dutta, P. C. Pattanaik, B. Reddy, Sadhana Naithani, P. Subachary, Molly Kaushal, Shyam Sundar Mahapatra, Bhabagrahi Mishra and many new folklorists have contributed in their respective field for shaping folklore study as a strong discipline in representing the people's memory and people's voice. Recently the National Folklore Support Center in Chennai has taken the initiative to promote folklore in public domain and bridging the gap of academic domain and community domain.[citation needed]
Indian folk heroes like Rama, Krishna in Sanskrit epics and history and also in freedom movement are well known to every one. They have found a place in written literature. But in Indian cultural sub-system, Indian folk heroes are most popular. The castes and tribes of India have maintained their diversities of culture through their language and religion and customs. So in addition to national heroes, regional heroes and local folk and tribal heroes are alive in the collective memory of the people. Let's take examples of the Santhals or the Gonds. The Santhals have their culture heroes Beer Kherwal and Bidu Chandan. Gonds have their folk hero Chital Singh Chhatti. Banjara folk hero is Lakha Banjara or Raja Isalu.[citation needed]
But not only heroes, the heroines of Indian folklore have also significant contribution in shaping the culture of India. Banjara epics are heroine-centric. These epics reflect the "sati" cult.[citation needed]
Oral epics with heroic actions of heroes and heroines produce a "counter text", as opposed to the written texts. Therefore, the younger brother becomes hero and kill his elder brother in an oral epic, which is forbidden in classical epics. Folk heroes are some times deified and are worshipped in the village. There is a thin difference of a mythic hero and romantic hero in Indian folklore. In Kalahandi, oral epics are available among the ethnic singers, performed in ritual context and social context. Dr Mahendra Mishra, a folklorist, has conducted research on oral epics in Kalahandi, taking seven ethnic groups. Dr. Chitrasen Pasayat has made an extensive study of different folk and tribal forms of Yatra, like Dhanu yatra, Kandhen-budhi yatra, Chuda-khai yatra, Sulia yatra, Patkhanda yatra, Budha-dangar yatra, Khandabasa yatra, Chhatar yatra, Sital-sasthi yatra and examined the 'hero characters' of the local deities.[citation needed]
Indian oral epics are found abundantly everywhere there are caste based culture. Prof. Lauri Honko from Turku, Finland with Prof. Vivek Rai and Dr K Chinnapa Gawda have conducted extensive field work and research on Siri Epic and have come out with three volumes on Epic of Siri, not Siri. Similarly Prof. Peter J Claus has done intensive work on Tulu epics. Aditya Mallick on Devnarayan epic, Pulikonda Subbachary on Jambupurana, Dr JD Smith on Pabuji epic are some of the commendable work that have been drawn attention of the wider readership.[citation needed]
In the rural areas of Kerala, there was a practice known as Odiyan (or "odian") where a group of individuals claimed the ability to terrify people to the point of death using a technique called otiviki.[4][5] Odiyan is a legendary figure in Kerala folklore, described as half-man, half-beast creatures that would lurk in alleyways during the night.[6] These Odiyans would apply specific herbs to certain parts of their bodies, chant spells, and transform themselves into various animals like bulls, buffaloes, or foxes, depending on their desire. Typically, this practice was associated with the Panan and Paraya communities, although individuals from other communities who possessed the necessary skills could also carry it out.[7]
India has a long history of board games. You hear about these from the times of the Mahabharata and the Mughal empire. Some of the popular board games that originated from Indian Traditional games include Chess (Chaturanga), Ludo (Pachisi) and Snakes and Ladders (Moksha-Patamu).[citation needed]
Recently, Odisha, a state in eastern India, introduced a child-friendly programme called Srujan (creativity) in the primary schools. About 18 million children took part in four activities like story telling activities, traditional games, traditional art and craft and music and dance and riddles over a period of three years (2007–2010). The result is that while there are hundreds of varieties of folktales, the varieties of traditional games are limited. About three hundred traditional games both indoor and outdoor were commonly played and it was found that the traditional games contain mathematical knowledge (like counting, measurement, shapes and size, geometrical ideas and finally socialization through action). The traditional games are the best ways of teaching and learning. When these are applied in the primary schools, many teachers revealed that children know many games that the teachers have forgotten.[citation needed]
Indoor board game like "Kasadi" ( a wooden board with 14 pits played with tamarind seed by two or more than two girls in the domestic domain) was most popular and it is still not vanished from the society. Dr Mahendra Kumar Mishra, a folklorist and an educator has collected these games and has documented in video form.Besides other games in the domestic domain is the goat and the tiger and ganjifa. These were the forerunners of the card games of today. Ganjifa used to be circular painted stack of card like things which were played using certain rules.[citation needed]
Indian folklorists
The scientific study of Indian folklore was slow to begin: early collectors felt far freer to creatively reinterpret source material and collected their material with a view to the picturesque rather than the representative.[citation needed]
A. K. Ramanujan's theoretical and aesthetic contributions span several disciplinary areas. Context-sensitivity is a theme that appears not only in Ramanujan's cultural essays, but also appears in his writing about Indian folklore and classic poetry. In "Where Mirrors are Windows," (1989) and in "Three Hundred Ramayanas" (1991), for example, he discusses the "intertextual" nature of Indian literature, written and oral...He says, "What is merely suggested in one poem may become central in a 'repetition' or an 'imitation' of it.[8] His essay "Where Mirrors Are Windows: Toward an Anthology of Reflections" (1989), and his commentaries in The Interior Landscape: Love Poems from a Classical Tamil Anthology (1967) and Folktales from India, Oral Tales from Twenty Indian Languages (1991) are good examples of his work in Indian folklore studies.[citation needed]
Rudyard Kipling was interested in folklore, dealing with English folklore in works such as Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies; his experiences in India led him to also create similar works with Indian themes. Kipling spent a great deal of his life in India and was familiar with the Hindi language. His works such as the two Jungle Books contain a lot of stories that are written after the manner of traditional folktales. Indian themes also appear in his Just So Stories, and many of the characters bear recognisable names from Indian languages. During the same period, Helen Bannerman penned the now notorious Indian-themed tale of Little Black Sambo, which represented itself to be an Indian folktale.[citation needed]
After independence, disciplines and methods from anthropology began to be used in the creation of more in-depth surveys of Indian folklore.[citation needed]
Folklorists of India can be broadly divided into three phases. Phase I was the British Administrators who collected the local knowledge and folklore to understand the subjects they want to rule. next were the missionaries who wanted to acquire the language of the people to recreate their religious literature for evangelical purpose. The third phase was the post-independent period in the country where many universities, institutes and individuals started studying the folklore. the purpose was to search the national identity through legends, myths, and epics. In the course of time, Academic institutions and universities in the country started opening departments on folklore in their respective regions, more in south India to maintain their cultural identity and also maintain language and culture.[citation needed]
After independence, scholars like Dr Satyendra, Devendra Satyarthi, Krishnadev Upadhayaya, Jhaberchand Meghani, Prafulla Dutta Goswami, Ashutosh Bhattacharya, Kunja Bihari Dash, Chitrasen Pasayat, Somnath Dhar, Ramgarib Choubey, Jagadish Chandra Trigunayan and many more were the pioneer in working on folklore. Of course, the trend was more literary than analytical. It was during the 1980s that the central Institute of Indian Languages and the American Institute of Indian Studies started their systemic study on Folklore any after that many western, as well as eastern scholars, pursued their studies on folklore as a discipline.[citation needed]
The pioneer of the folklorists in contemporary India is Jawaharlal Handoo, Sadhana Naithani, Kishore Bhattacharjee, Kailash Patnaik, VA Vivek Rai, late Komal Kothari, Raghavan Payanad, M Ramakrishnan, Nandini Sahu.M.N. Venkatesha and many more. An emerging trend of new folklorists has emerged who are committed to understanding folklore from an Indian point of view than to see the whole subjects from the western model. Some of them are better to prefer to understand folklore from the folklore provider and consultants who are the creator and consumers of folklore. The user of folklore knows what folklore is since their use folklore with purpose and meaning. But theoreticians see folklore from their theoretical angle. Ethics point of view, folklorist should learn from the folk as practicable as possible and folk should give the hidden meaning of folklore to the folklorist so that both of their interpretation can help to give a new meaning to the item of folklore and explore the possibility of use of folklore in the new socio-cultural domain.[citation needed]
Dr Mahendra Kumar Mishra from Kalahandi, Odisha has substantially contributed to the tribal folklore of Middle Indian and Odisha. His seminal book Oral Epics of Kalahandi has been translated into Chinese, and Finnish language. He has written Saora folk literature, Paharia Folkliterature, Visioning Folklore, Oral Poetry of Kalahandi. His recent seminal work is three oral Ramakatha in tribal oral tradition. Dr Mishra has written five books on folklore theory and research methodology adopting the folklore of western Odisha and Chhattisgarh. The analytical work of Dr Mishra has been widely studied in the western and eastern world as a part of South Asian folklore.[citation needed]
Now the National Folklore Support Center, Chennai since the last ten years[when?] has created a space for the new scholars who are pursuing the study of folklore with their commitment. One important breakthrough in the field of folklore is that it is no more confined to the study in the four walls of academic domain, rather, it has again found its space within and among the folk to get their true meaning.[citation needed]
Dr.Raghavanvpayyanad is a major role in Indian folklore study he has written so many books about folklore, he is also an international face of Indian folkloristics both in English and Malayalam.[citation needed]
Folk songs and folk music
India has a rich and varied tradition of folk music and numerous types of folk songs. Some traditional folk song genres have been recognized as Intangible Cultural Heritage listed by UNESCO. Among these traditions, a well-known musical and religious repertoire is known as Baul, which has become famous in the World Music scene. Among the most respected historical figures of the Baul tradition, Lalon Fakir and Bhaba Pagla are often mentioned.[9]
Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as tales, myths, legends, proverbs, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also includes material culture, such as traditional building styles common to the group. Folklore also encompasses customary lore, taking actions for folk beliefs, and the forms and rituals of celebrations such as Christmas, weddings, folk dances, and initiation rites.
A fairy tale is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cultures, there is no clear line separating myth from folk or fairy tale; all these together form the literature of preliterate societies. Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends and explicit moral tales, including beast fables. Prevalent elements include dragons, dwarfs, elves, fairies, giants, gnomes, goblins, griffins, merfolk, monsters, monarchy, pixies, talking animals, trolls, unicorns, witches, wizards, magic, and enchantments.
Folklore studies is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currency in the 1950s to distinguish the academic study of traditional culture from the folklore artifacts themselves. It became established as a field across both Europe and North America, coordinating with Volkskunde (German), folkeminner (Norwegian), and folkminnen (Swedish), among others.
The Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index is a catalogue of folktale types used in folklore studies. The ATU index is the product of a series of revisions and expansions by an international group of scholars: Originally published in German by Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne (1910), the index was translated into English, revised, and expanded by American folklorist Stith Thompson, and later further revised and expanded by German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther (2004). The ATU index is an essential tool for folklorists, used along with the Thompson (1932)Motif-Index of Folk-Literature.
Kalahandi district is a district of western Odisha in India.
Attipate Krishnaswami Ramanujan was an Indian poet and scholar of Indian literature and linguistics. Ramanujan was also a professor of Linguistics at University of Chicago.
Komal Kothari (1929–2004) was an Indian folklorist and ethnomusicologist. Komal Kothari had devoted his life to investigation and documentation of folk traditions of western Rajasthan. Kothari received the honour of Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan from the Government of India. Komal Kothari painstakingly worked to preserve the cultural memory and made numerous recordings of folk music. He studied Langa and Manganiyar communities of folk musicians of Thar desert. Komal Kothari was not only a scholar but also a man of action. He co-founded Rupayan Sansthan - Rajasthan Institute of Folklore, in 1960 in the village of Borunda. The institution houses a repository of recordings by Kothari and works to collect, preserve, and disseminate the oral traditions of Rajasthan. Kothari was co-editor of the journal Lok Sanskriti, a journal based on the theme of folk culture. Besides, Kothari arranged international performances of folk artists from Rajasthan in several countries. His monograph on Langas, a folk-musician caste in Rajasthan, was enlivened by an accompanying album of recordings of twelve folk songs sung by Langa artistes. His understanding of desert culture and its connections with ecology endeared him to the environmentalists. He planned a museum based on the ecology of the broom’, to show the technical use of specific types of desert grass for specific purposes. His vision was actualised in the form of Arna Jharna - The Thar Desert Museum of Rajasthan in Borunda, near Jodhpur. Kothari was a scholar of patterns of culture and his expertise enriched both folklore studies and history.
The Odia (ଓଡ଼ିଆ), formerly spelled Oriya, are an Indo-Aryan ethno-linguistic group native to the Indian state of Odisha who speak the Odia language. They constitute a majority in the eastern coastal state, with significant minority populations existing in the neighboring states of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
"Trusty John", "Faithful John", "Faithful Johannes", or "John the True" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1819. Andrew Lang included it in The Blue Fairy Book.
The Sora are a Munda ethnic group from eastern India. They live in southern Odisha and north coastal Andhra Pradesh.
Odisha is one of the 28 states of India, located on the eastern coast. It is surrounded by the states of West Bengal to the northeast, Jharkhand to the north, Chhattisgarh to the west and northwest, and Andhra Pradesh to the south and southwest. Odia is the official and most widely spoken language, spoken by 33.2 million according to the 2001 Census. The modern state of Odisha was established on 1 April 1936, as a province in British India, and consisted predominantly of Odia-speaking regions. April 1 is celebrated as Odisha Day.
Nuakhai is an agricultural festival mainly observed by people of Western Odisha in India. Nuakhai is observed to welcome the new rice of the season. According to the calendar it is observed on panchami tithi of the lunar fortnight of the month of Bhadrapada or Bhadraba (August–September), the day after the Ganesh Chaturthi festival. This is the most important social festival of Western Odisha and Chhattishgarh also adjoining areas of Simdega in Jharkhand, where the culture of Western Odisha is much predominant.
Bhunjias, are an ethnic group found in India mainly reside in Sunabeda plateau in Odisha and Chhattisgarh. They are mostly found in Nuapada district, which is roughly between 22° 55′ N and 21° 30′ N latitude and 82° 35′ E longitude. It was a part of Khariar Zamindari, which formed the eastern and the southeastern region of Raipur district of Chhattisgarh division in Central Province till 1 April 1936, when it was transferred to Odisha on its creation. It is now in Komna block of Nuapada district in Orissa. In Chhattisgarh they are found in Raipur district.
Patachitra or Pattachitra is a general term for traditional, cloth-based scroll painting, based in the eastern Indian states of Odisha, West Bengal and parts of Bangladesh. Patachitra artform is known for its intricate details as well as mythological narratives and folktales inscribed in it. Pattachitra is one of the ancient artworks of Odisha, originally created for ritual use and as souvenirs for pilgrims to Puri, as well as other temples in Odisha. Patachitras are a component of an ancient Bengali narrative art, originally serving as a visual device during the performance of a song.
Ghumura dance is a folk dance of Kalahandi district of the Indian state Odisha. It is classified as folk dance as the dress code of Ghumura resembles more like a tribal dance, but there are arguments about mudra and dance forms of Ghumura bearing more resemblance with other classical dance forms of India.
Sambalpur, in Western Odisha, is a region that has a distinct cultural identity. The songs, clothing, dances, language, Food and festivals celebrated in Sambalpur and Western Odisha are unique. This distinct cultural identity arises from the strong association of the tribal and folk communities which have been coexisting in Sambalpur and Other Districts Of Western Odisha Region for centuries.
Bhawanipatna is classified as one of the major tourist destinations by the tourism Department of Government of Odisha. All the tourist attraction in Kalahandi region comes under Bhawanipatna jurisdiction. Though tourist potential of Kalahandi has not been fully exploited, the land is rich in terms of waterfalls, forest and wild life, natural scenery, tribal life, mountains, agriculture field, historical sites and handicrafts. The best time to visit Kalahandi region is from October to March. April–June is hard Summer and temperatures may reach 45 degree C and June to August is the Monsoon Season. While it occasionally rains in September, the Nuakhai festival is help in September and Dassara is held at the end of September or early October. The celebration of Chaitra occurs in February/March.
Digambara Patra is a professor of Chemistry at the American University of Beirut.
Shobhanasundari Mukhopadhyay was an Indian writer, known for her collections of folktales. She was the daughter of Hemendranath Tagore and the niece of writer Rabindranath Tagore.
Gandabahali is a village in Sinapali Block in the south of Nuapada District in Odisha, India.
↑ "Folk and Tribal Art". Know India. Culture and Heritage. Visual Arts and Literature. National Informatics Centre, Government of India. 2005. Archived from the original on 2011-12-13. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
↑ "Thirayattam" (Folklore Text -malayalam), Bhasha Institute, Keralam - ISBN978-81-200-4294-0
↑ Wagoner, Candy (Fall 1998). "Attipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan". Postcolonial Studies at Emory University. Emory University, Department of English. Archived from the original on 2004-12-22. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
↑ Lorea, Carola Erika (2016). Folklore, religion and the songs of a Bengali madman: a journey between performance and the politics of cultural representation. Leiden. ISBN9789004324701. OCLC950430793.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Thompson, Stith; Roberts, Warren Everett (1960). Types of Indic Oral Tales: India, Pakistan, And Ceylon. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia.
VIDYARTHI, L. P. (1978). "Folklore Research in India". In Alan Dundes (ed.). Varia Folklorica. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter Mouton. pp.201–262. doi:10.1515/9783110807721.201.
Jason, Heda[in German] (1989). Types of Indic Oral Tales: Supplement. Academia Scientiarum Fennica. ISBN9789514105968.
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