Oral Tradition, Society and History
By: Chitrasen Pasayat.
Publisher: Mohit Publications, 4675/21, Ansari Road, Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110002, INDIA
Published: 2008
Place of publication: New Delhi
Language: eng
Number of pages: 125
ISBN-13: 9788174454195
Subjects: Oral History-Folklore-Folkculture; Anthropology-Ethnology-Tribal History-Tribal Culture
First sentence: On the issue of relationship between the tribal people and caste-Hindus in India, we find two diverse opinions. Some scholars think that, social and cultural tradition of the Hindu Great Tradition have organic links with the tribal society and culture. Some other scholars opine that, tribal people do not have more than casual contacts with the caste-Hindus. However, varied nature of social realities suggest co-existence of tribal as well as caste characteristics in a given empirical situation though concepts like Sanskritisation, Hinduisation and Aryanisation are widely introduced and developed by the scholars to study social and cultural changes among the tribal people in India. Such literature suffer from a bias because it describes social and cultural change necessarily through the Brahminical models where sanskritik elements have received more attention in empirical studies. Papers in this volume reveal that, neither Sanskritisation nor Tribalisation is exclusively found to be helpful in explaining and understanding a social or cultural item in a society or community; there is every possibility of tribal and Hindu elements co-existing in a given social or cultural item which may be due to Sanskritisation or vice versa. It means that, the process of Sanskritisation is intimately linked with the process of Tribalisation; there is a fusion of two processes of Sanskritisation and Tribalisation.
Description: Essays presented in this volume are in Indian context. Earlier, these were published in various edited books and social sciences journals like Man in India, The Eastern Anthropologist, Journal of Social Anthropology, Adivasi, Banaja, Folklore, Orissa Review, The Orissa Historical Research Journal, The Oriental Anthroplogist, Urban India, Man and Development.
Notes: CONTENTS: Preface (iii); Chapter-I: Introduction (1-9); Chapter-II: Oral Narrative and Hindu Method of Assimilation: A Case of Marjarakesari in Narsinghnath (10-29); Chapter-III: Oral Tradition of Huma and Legitimisation of Chauhan Rule (30-39); Chapter-IV: Samalei to Sambaleswari: Hindu Mode of Absorption of a Tribal Deity and State Formation during Medieval Period in Sambalpur (40-55); Chapter-V: Political Economy of Medieval West Orissa as Reflected in Oral Tradition (56-73); Chapter-VI: Oral Narrative and Tribal Non-tribal Interaction: A Study of Karma Festival in Sambalpur (74-87); Chapter-VII: Social Inequality as Reflected in Oral Tradition (89-99); Chapter-VIII: Oral Tradition and Tribal Origin of Holy Triad (101-113); Chapter-IX: Lord Jagannath in Oral Narratives as Symbol of Unity and Integration (115-120); Index (121-125).