Folklore of India

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This article is about the folklore of the Indian subcontinent. For Native American folklore, see Native American folklore.

The culture of India has been broken down into five main geographical regions.

The folklore of India compasses the folklore of the nation of India and the Indian subcontinent.

The subcontinent of India contains a wide diversity of ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups. Given this diversity, it is difficult to generalize widely about the folklore of India as a unit.

Hinduism, the religion of the majority of the citizens of India, is a heterogeneous faith whose local manifestations are diverse. Folk religion in Hinduism may explain the rationale behind local religious practices, and contain local myths that explain the existence of local religious customs or the location of temples. These sorts of local variation have a higher status in Hinduism than comparable customs would have in religions such as Christianity or Islam. Some have claimed that the very concept of a "folklore of India" represents a colonial imposition that disparages the Hindu religion.^{[citation needed]} However, folklore as currently understood goes beyond religious or supernatural beliefs and practices, and compasses the entire body of social tradition whose chief vehicle of transmission is oral or outside institutional channels.

1 Indian folklorists
2 Folk art of India
- 2.1 Folktales of India
  - 2.1.1 See also
3 Indian folk heroes, villains, and tricksters
4 Traditional games of India
5 See also
6 References

[edit] Indian folklorists

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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. The collection of "ugly people of India" begins with the export of ugly materials collected under the British Raj.

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 great deal 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.

After independence, disciplines and methods from anthropology began to be used in the creation of more in depth surveys of Indian folklore.

Folklorists of India can be broadly divided in to three phases. Phase I were 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. 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 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. After independence, scholars like Devendra satyarthi,Krishnadev Upadhayaya,Jhaberchand Meghani,Prafulla Dutta Goswami, Ashutosh Bhattacharya,Kunja Bihari Dash, Somnath Dhar,Ramgarib choube, jagadish Chandra Trigunayan and many more were the pioneer in wortking on folklore.Of course the trend was more literary than analytical.

It was during  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 wel as esatern scholars pursued their studies on folklore as a discipline.
The pioneer of the folklorists in contemporary india  are   Jawaharlal Handoo,VA Vivek Rai,late  Komal Kothari,raghavan Payanad,

and many more. An emerging trens of new folklorists have emerged who are committed to understand folklore from Indian point of view than to see the whole subjects from the western model.Some of them are better prefer to understand folklore from the folklore provider and consultants whoi are the creator and consumers of folklore.

 Now National Folklore support Center , Chennai since  last  ten years 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 confiled to the study in the four wall of academic domain, rather , it has again fould its space with in and among the folkto get their true meaning.

[edit] Folk art of India

Art forms in India have been exquisite and explicit. folk forms of art include various schools of art like the mughal school, rajsthani school, etc. Each school has its distinct style of color combinations or figures and its features. Other popular folk art forms include madhubani paintings from bihar and warli paintings from maharashtra. tanjore paintings of south india use real gold work to make paintings.

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[edit] Folktales of India

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 Pabujii, 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. [1]

Other noteworthy collections of Indian traditional stories include the Panchatantra, a collection of traditional narratives made by Vishnu Sarma in the second century BC. The Hitopadesha of Narayana is a collection of anthropomorphic fabliaux, animal fables, in Sanskrit, compiled in the ninth century.

[edit] See also

Indian folklorists since last thirty years have substantially contributed to the study of folklore. Devendra Satyarthi, Krishna Dev Upadyhayaya, Prafulla Dutta Goswamy, Kunja Bihari Dash, Ashutosh Bhatacharya and many more senior folklorists have contributed for the study of folklore. But it is during 1970's 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. AK Ramanjuan was the noted folklorist to analyse folklore from Indian context. Study of folklore was strengthened by two stremas (sicsic), one is Finnish folklorists Lauri Honko and another is Peter J. Claus of American folklore. These two folklorists conducted their field work on Siri Epic and Tulu Epic respectively and led the Indian folklorists to the new folklore study. Central Institute of Indian languages has played a major role in promoting folklore studies in India to explore the another reallity of Indian culture. Recently scholars like M.D.Muthukumaraswamy, Vivek Rai, Jawaharlal Handoo, Birendranath Dutta, B.Reddy, Sadhana Naithani, P Subachary, Mahendra Mishra, Molly Kaushal, 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 National Folklore Support Center in Chennai has taken initiative to promote folklore in public domain and bridging the gap of academic domain and community domain.

[edit] Indian folk heroes, villains, and tricksters

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Indian folk heroes in Sanskrit epics and history and also in freedom movement are well known to every one.Theyare found 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.Lets take examples of the Santals or the Gonds. The Santals have their culture hero "Beer kherwal" and "Bidu Chandan". Gonds have their folk hero "Chital Singh Chatri". Banjara folk hero is "Lakha Banjara" or "Raja Isalu". 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. Oral epics with heroic actions of heroes and heroines produce a "counter texts" as opposed to the written texts. Therefore the younger brother becomes hero and kill his brother in an oral epic, but it is not possible 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.

[edit] Traditional games of India

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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 (Shatranj), Ludo (Pacheesi) and Snakes and Ladders (Moksha-Patamu). Traditional sports of India are Cricket, Football and Soccer. Cricket is the main sport in India. It has been around for a long time and Cricket is rapidly expanding all over the world.

[edit] See also

another important but rather unknown fact in this category of indoor games is "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.