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Who Needs ? The Relevance of Oral Traditions to South Asian Studies* by A.K. Ramanujan

In the last few years I’ve been writing a series of interlocking papers on the subject of Indian folklore using Kannada and Tamil examples from my field notes. Now I will touch on a number of issues I’ve touched on before, refine them further, relate them to other issues, and generally bring them into a unified perspective. My theme is not folklore in general but Indian folklore within the context of Indian studies. I wish also to do several things: (1) give a state-of- the-art report on the field of Indian folklore; (2) clarify some notions and add some; and (3) generally ask and answer questions about what the study of folklore, as a subject matter and as a discipline, would do to some of the notions of humanists and social scientists about Indian civilisation. When some years ago I first approached this subject—the place of folklore in the study of Indian civilization—I heard a little skeptical voice from my past say “Folklore? Who needs folklore? Old-wives’ tales and peasant superstitions, who needs them?” As you know, the past never quite passes. We may hear that voice again. Here, I’m going to take that question literally and answer it.

Why Folklore? language of the nonliterate parts of of state, said to me, “How For starters I for one need folklore me and my culture. Even in a large can you collect folklore in a big city?” as an Indian studying . It modern city like Bombay or Madras, I asked him to try an experiment. He pervades my childhood, my family, my even in Western-style nuclear families was a professor of Kannada, and he community. It is the symbolic with their 2.2 children, folklore is only had a composition class that a suburb away, a cousin or a afternoon at his college. I asked him *This is the text of the first Rama Watamull grandmother away. One of the best to set a composition exercise to his Lecture on India delivered at the Univer- folk plays I’ve seen was performed in class of urban students. Each of them sity of Hawaii in March 1988. The author the back streets of Madras city by should write down a folktale they had is a professor in the Department of South teruk-kuttu troupes. When a friend heard and never read. That evening, Asian Languages and Civilizations at the of mine in Bangalore, the capital city my friend sought me out excitedly to University of Chicago

2 MANUSHI show me a sheaf of 40 tales his the house to look for our keys. As students had written down for him in often happens, we may not find the class from memory. keys and may have to make new ones, I shall not speak here of Indian but we will find all sorts of things we urban folklore, for wherever people never knew we had lost, or ever even live folklore grows—new jokes, had. proverbs (like the new campus Regional Languages proverb, “to xerox is to know”), tales, Four centuries ago, just a century and songs circulate in the oral after Vasco da Gama landed on the tradition. Similar to chain letters, west coast of India, just decades after Murphy’s Law, and graffiti, folklore Gutenberg had printed his first Bible may also circulate on paper or on in Europe, Christian evangelists had latrine walls (Dundes and Pagter begun to study our mother tongues, 1978). You don’t have to go to Pompeii compile dictionaries, make grammars, to see graffiti. Verbal folklore, in the and even print them in India. Yet, until sense of a largely oral tradition with recently, almost exclusively specific genres (such as proverb, represented India to most people in riddle, lullaby, tale, ballad, prose the West. narrative, verse, or a mixture of both, In America, it was only about 25 and so on), nonverbal materials (such years ago that universities began to as dances, games, floor or wall study Indian regional languages. At designs, objects of all sorts from toys least three or four major languages, to outdoor giant clay horses), and such as Tamil, , and Bengali, composite performing arts (which began to appear in course listings. may include several of the former as Both linguists and anthropologists in street magic and theatre)—all went to these language regions, weave in and out of every aspect of studied the languages in the field, and living in city, village, and small town. wrote about the texts and the cultures. What we separate as art, economics, These languages are only a minute and religion is molded and expressed fraction of those spoken in the here. Aesthetics, ethos, and worldview subcontinent. In the 1971 census are shaped in childhood and more than 3,000 mother tongues were throughout one’s early life by these recorded with the names of the speech verbal and non-verbal environments. varieties that the speakers said they In a largely nonliterate culture, Deepalakshmi, Madurai, Crafts spoke. Linguists have classified and everyone—poor, rich, high caste and Museum Delhi (From Aditi) subsumed these speech varieties, or low caste, professor, pundit, or dialects, under 105 languages or so ignoramus—has inside him or her a “Because it’s dark in there. I don’t which belong to four language large nonliterate subcontinent. have oil in my lamps. I can see much families. Of these 105 languages 90 In a South Indian folktale, also told better here under the street lights,” are spoken by less than 5 percent of elsewhere, one dark night an old she said. the entire population; 65 belong to woman was searching intently for Until recently many studies of small tribes. Including Sanskrit, 15 of something in the street. A passerby Indian civilisation have been done on the languages are written, read, and asked her, “Have you lost that principle: look for it under the light, spoken by about 95 percent of the something?” in Sanskrit, in literary texts, in what people. We, in universities outside She said, “Yes, I’ve lost some we think are the well-lit public spaces India, have just begun to study a few keys. I’ve been looking for them all of the culture, in things we already of these 15 languages. evening.” know. There we have, of course, The literatures of these 15, some “Where did you lose them?” “I found precious things. Without of which have long histories, are just don’t know. Maybe inside the house.” carrying the parable too far one may beginning to be taught and translated. “Then, why are you looking for say we are now moving inward, trying Literature in a language like Tamil goes them here?’ to bring lamps into the dark rooms of back 2,000 years, and in several others,

No.69 3 like Bengali and Gujarati, at least 800 anonymous “unreflective many.” 1933) re•sponding to one another, years. In addition to these literatures Redfield himself and Milton Singer engaged in continuous and dynamic there are oral traditions, riddles, later modified these notions and dialogic relations. Past and present, proverbs, songs, ballads, tales, epics, others have been critical of them. what’s “pan-Indian” and what’s local, and so on, in each of the 3,000-odd They were seminal at one time, what’s shared and what’s unique in mother tongues that we have especially because they urged regions, communities, and classified under the 105 languages. It anthropologists not to ignore the individuals, the written and the oral— is true, as they say, a language is a “texts” of a culture in favor of all are engaged in a dialogic reworking dialect that has acquired an army, but “fieldwork.” and redefining of relevant others. all these myriad dialects carry oral Cultural Performances as Texts then are also contexts and literature, which is what I call folklore. Texts pretexts for other texts (Ramanujan One way of defining verbal folklore Now we need a new emphasis, a 1989). In our studies now we are for to say it is the literature of larger view regarding texts beginning to recognise and place folk the dialects, those mother tongues of themselves, as text theory in literary texts in this everpresent network of the village, street, kitchen, tribal hut, criticism and philosophic analysis intertextuality. For folk texts are and wayside tea shop. This is the urge us to do. Written and hallowed pervasive, behind, under, around all wide base of the Indian pyramid on texts are not the only kinds of texts in the texts of our society, and in all its which all other Indian literatures rest. a culture like the Indian. Oral strata, not merely among the rural and We have valued and attended traditions of every kind produce texts. the illiterate, the “unreflective many.” only to the top of the pyramid. Robert “Cultural performances” (Singer City and village, factory and kitchen, Redfield, the Chicago anthropologist 1972:47) of every sort, whether they Hindu, Buddhist, and Jaina, who influenced Indian anthropology are written or oral acts of composition, Christian,and Muslim, king, priest, in the 1950s and 1960s, said, “In a whether they are plays or weddings, and clown, the crumbling almanac and civilization, there is a great tradition rituals or games, contain texts. Every the runaway computer—all are of the reflective few and there is a little cultural performance not only creates permeated by oral traditions, tales, tradition of the largely unreflective and carries texts, it is a text. jokes, beliefs, and rules of thumb not many” (Redfield 1960:41). That is a When we look at texts this way yet found in books. I shall say more famous formulation that deserves to we can modify terms such as great later about the dialogic relations be infamous. Traditionally Indians and little traditions and see all these between folklore and other parts of also make a distinction between performances as a transitive series, a this Indian cultural continuum. marga “the high road” and desi, “the “scale of forms” (a phrase in a Interactive Pan-Indian byway, the country road” in their different context, from Collingwood Systems discussion of the arts. In the view being The “Great developed here, even Tradition,” with what’s called the Great capitals and in the Tradition is not singular, said to be singular but plural—it carried by Sanskrit, is is a set of interactive pan-Indian, pan-Indian systems, prestigious, ancient, Brahminism, authorised by texts, Buddhism, Jainism, cultivated and carried with tantra and by what Redfield interacting variously calls “the reflective with these. To be few.” The “Little comprehensive we Tradition,” or should add Islam, traditions in the plural, Christianity, et cetera, are local, mostly oral, and modernity itself as and carried by the the other active illiterate (the liberal systems that would call them participate in this give- nonliterate) and the Juggleer with monkey, Jammu, 1750 A.D. (From Aditi) and-take. (For a fuller

4 MANUSHI development of this idea, see movement of populations. A proverb, natured king may have evil Ramanujan 1989.) a riddle, a joke, a story, a remedy, or a counselors. This is, of course, Let’s examine briefly the idea that recipe travels every time it is told. It characteristic of cultural forms. The some traditions are pan-Indian and crosses linguistic boundaries any signifiers, of which even the so-called some not. Sanskrit and Prakrit, though time a bilingual tells it or hears it. structures and archetypes are they have a pan-Indian distribution, Neighboring languages and instances, may be the same in different still originate in particular regions; regions have, therefore, a large stock periods and regions, but the Sanskrit itself, though translocal and of shared folk materials. Collections, signification may go on changing. You apparently a-geographic, has varieties for instance, have been made of the cannot predict the one from the other. of pronunciation that can be identified proverbs shared by the four Dravidian For the meaning of a sign is culturally as Bengali, Malayali, or Banarasi (Staal languages. Similar ones can be made and contextually assigned. A sign 1961). Nor are the so-called “Little for other genres and for other requires an assignment. Traditions,” especially folk traditions, neighboring language areas, and Not only do folklore items— necessarily or usually confined to indeed for the whole subcontinent. A arising and current in apparently small localities or dialectal proverb such as “It’s dark under the narrow incommunicable corners and communities. Proverbs, riddles, and lamp” (dipada kelage kattale, in very localised dialects—travel within stories, and tunes, motifs, and genres Kannada) has been collected in the country or culture area, they are of songs and dances are not confined Kannada and in Kashmiri, at two ends also part of an international network. to a region, even though they may be of the . The Archer Taylor’s English Riddles embodied in the nonliterate dialects sentence is the same in each place, (1951) gives us current English riddles and may seem to be enclosed in those but it means different things. The and their centuries-old written mythic entities called self-sufficient reference is the same, but the sense is variants, as well as variants from village communities. It is well known different. In Kannada it means that a Africa, India, and the New World. One that folklore items, like many other virtuous man, like a lighted lamp, may can collect today, as I know from sorts of items in cultural exchange, are have dark hidden vices. In Kasmniri, experience, oral tales from illiterate autotelic, that is, they travel by I’m told, “It’s dark under the lamp” women in Kannada villages that are themselves without any actual has a political sense— that a good- similar, motif for motif, to the tales of

Ritual Dance, Mesolithic rock painting, Madhya Pradesh. (From Indian Folk Art by Heinz Mode

No.69 5 the Greek Oedi•pus or to European languages, Classical and until recently to read meant to Shakespeare’s King Lear or All’s Well Sanskrit, and in our mother tongues, read aloud. I’ve heard of a grand-uncle That Ends Well. we can arrive at a most useful three- who would say he couldn’t read a Here we begin to glimpse a way comparison between what is novel because he had a sore throat. paradox: where the so-called pan- Indian and what is Western; and So too, to write meant to write down. Indian Hindu mythologies of Visnu or within India, between what is Writing was an aide memoir, a Siva, or the great classics like the Sanskritic and what is characteristic mnemonic device, for materials to be and the are of a regional culture and a mother rendered oral again. Speech lies unique to India, folklore items such tongue—and of course the dialogues dormant in writing until it is awakened as proverbs and tales participate in and exchanges among these. Such again by one’s own or another’s voice, an international network of motifs, triangulations, if replicated for several like these words on this page as you genres, types, and structures—using tales, would give us a body of unique or I read them. them all, of course, to say something comparative data and analyses. Sometimes it is thought that the particular, local, and unique. One Written and Oral Media so-called classical texts are fixed and arrives at the paradox that the classics Folklore also raises and makes us the so-called folk texts are constantly of a culture, like the well-wrought face other central questions; for changing. Similarly, writing is thought epics or plays and poetry, are culture- instance, questions regarding the to be fixed and speech constantly bound forms, but large portions of the differences and relations between changing. One often identifies the so-called little traditions are not. The written and spoken media in Indian “classical” with the written and the latter mold and express the values and oral culture. “folk” with the oral. But, for India, we concerns of the culture nonetheless. The relations between oral and should distinguish between three sets Their forms, their signifiers, however, written traditions in any culture are of independent oppositions. We may are not ethnocentered. not simple oppositions. They then proceed to examine, complicate, One has to resort to subterfuge interpenetrate each other and and dissolve them. The three are and theoretical acrobatics to compare combine in various ways. Each of us classical vs. folk, written vs. spoken, the Sanskrit Mahabharata and the produces more oral materials in our fixed vs. free or fluid. The classical, Greek Iliad or invoke ancient Indo- lives than written. We begin our lives the written, and the fixed do not European structures (such as the in an oral universe, learn our mother necessarily belong together. A text like tripartite division of priest, warrior, and tongues orally first and imbibe our the Vedas is fixed but was not written service classes) as Dumezil (1968) culture through it. As adults, on any down until a thousand years after its does. But the comparison of day or occasion, we say much more composition. The Vedas were esoteric Cinderella tales from China to Peru than we write. Talk surrounds us and and credited with magical properties begins with transparent structural we talk to ourselves, not only to that would devastate anyone who resemblances and may end with others, not always even silently, and misprounced them. They were significant contrast between one often we do not even stop when we transmitted orally but rigorously in culture’s assignment of meanings and fall asleep. Our dreams are filled with elaborate teaching systems from another’s (Ramanujan 1983). speech. Yet writing is more permanent; to disciple. Pundits and Vedic experts Unfortunately, comparativists have it takes us out of a face-to-face had what Narayana Rao calls “oral not paid attention to Indian folklore communication and can reach people literacy”; they used an almost entirely and folklorists have usually stopped far away and centuries later, in ages oral medium, but were learned in at identifying types, rarely going unborn and accents yet unknown, as grammar, syntax, logic, and poetics. further to ask questions of cultural Shakespeare would say. In Sanskrit, a Their literacy was, as it were, imbued significance. Detailed comparative written letter is called aksara in their bodies. We speak of a learned studies of particular proverbs, tales, “imperishable.” In India, literacy has man having all his texts in his throat, and so on, for which there are well- always been restricted and today in kanthastha; when one is ignorant, attested comparative materials, are many states is less than 30 percent. one is called “a fellow who has no called for and would greatly enhance Written traditions live surrounded by letters in his belly” or a our understanding of what is oral ones and are even carried by oral niraksarakuksi. specifically Indian, or Tamil, or means. As in many other languages, Although such oral literacy Bengali. Because some of these tales, in Kannada the word for writing produced texts that were carefully for example, can be identified in (bare) is the same as that for drawing; preserved verbatim, allowing little

6 MANUSHI change, a text like an epic story in the from phonology to syntax, we become The text of a song may be only a few written tradition of the Ramayana freer and freer in combinatory lines long, but when sung may take seems to allow endless variations. possibilities. Still, some things are not an hour, and usually does. On the Hundreds of versions exist, written, subject to variation and not open to other hand, orally transmitted texts sung, danced, and sculpted in South innovation. Not even Shakespeare or have fixed components, formulae, and Southeast Asian languages. Kalidasa, acknowledged masters and refrains, obligatory descriptive Though I would insist that each of not servants of their languages, can passages, and traditionally defined these many tellings should be treated make a new pronoun or add a tense to motifs and narrative structures. as a separate (often fixed) text, it is the language. When writers like Joyce Different genres have different still remarkable that the orally try to take such liberties, they achieve proportions of these; for example, a transmitted Vedas should be such specialised effects that they proverb is an entirely fixed-phrase remarkably fixed and the written require glossaries and notes, and form within a speech community. One should take such liberties explication quickly becomes cult and can play on its fixity to produce new with the story and should be almost a cottage industry. effects as wits like Oscar Wilde did: as fluid as an oral folktale. The In discourse too different genres “Nothing succeeds like excess,” or my contrast will become clear when we allow different degrees of fixity and favorite, “All’s well that ends.” In a compare the great Indian epics with freedom. Where the written form is joke, everything may be free, but the the great Western texts. Imagine a only a mnemonic, a score to be punchline may be fixed—to garble it Shakespeare play or Homer’s Odyssey performed orally, it is used freely for would be to muff the joke. A folksong having as many widely differing improvisation. The texts of a would have practically every word versions in different ages and performance or a fixed, except performance elements languages. We cannot jump from this Kathakali performance are hardly a like the number of repetitions, or the to the paradox that in India the oral is few pages long, but an actual way a phrase is broken to accord with invariably fixed and the written is what performance may take a whole night. the musical phrase. A folktale told by is fluid. The fixed and the fluid, or a grand•mother in the kitchen may what should be called fixed- have nothing at all fixed in the phrase and free-phrase forms, phrasing, only the design of the exist in both written and spoken story and the sequence of motifs. texts. Yet it may have fixed phrases, like Language, like other “Open Sesame” in the story of Ali communication systems, depends Baba— a phrase that his brother on both fixed or invariant forms treats as a free phrase, with and free or variant ones. Without disastrous results. The Vedas are the one the system would not be an extreme case of a 4,000-hymn stable; without the other it would cycle fixed in oral transmission, as not be capable of change, if it were inscribed (as secret codes adaptation, creativity. Our are in spy stories) in the ordinary language is full of fixed transmitter’s memory. forms, not only in terms of Furthermore, oral and written underlying structures at every forms in a culture often wish to be level, but even in lexical like each other, like the two sexes, combinations. To give just one male and female, each envying example, idioms like “he kicked the what the other has. Yet each bucket” cannot be changed for defines and marries the other. In tense, article, or number. Any the oral forms, in folklore, many variation such as “he is kicking devices such as refrains, formulae, the bucket; he is kicking a bucket; and memory training exist to give they are kicking buckets; he has the relative permanence of been kicking the bucket for a week writing. From time to time, in now” would all be ungrammatical, writing traditions, writers wish to mean other things, and be seen Yellamma-Gangamma, , 20th return to the freshness of speech as funny. In language, as we move Century, Rajeev Sethi Collection. (From Aditi) and imitate it, as in modern Indian

No.69 7 (and other) poetry. Flaubert, master Western critical methods, based “Wheel of Fortune,” has to do with of the written word who waited for entirely on an examination and spelling words and phrases. Every days for the mot juste is the exemplar reconstruction of written texts, made letter is cashed into dollars, every of the opposite end of the oral arts, the Critical Editions of Indian texts phrase into furniture and a trip to where to hesitate is to be lost. Yet it possible. But they may not be suitable Hawaii. In a culture like the Indian, was Flaubert who said that style for a reconstruction of the however, and certainly in villages and should be adjusted to the rhythms of Mahabharata at all. For methods of certain communities to this day, respiration. Western textual criticism aim at writing lives within the context of oral In all cultures, and especially in making tree-diagrams, relating one traditions. Even newspapers are read the Indian, the oral and the written written version to another, aloud. If you have been near any are deeply intermeshed in another demonstrating that one came directly primary school in a small town or even way. If we distinguish composition from another, reaching back to a single in Madras, you would hear the pupils and transmission, as Ruth Finnegan Ur-text. Texts like the Mahabharata a mile away, for the classes recite their (1977) reminds us we should, we find may not have a reconstructable Ur- lessons in a loud chorus. Not only that in the history of a text, oral and text at all, enmeshed as they were in the alphabet and the multiplication written means may alternate. A work oral traditions at various stages of tables, but every major religious or may be composed orally but their composition and transmission. literary text like the Ramayana is transmitted in writing, as Vyasa said In a folktale told about Aristotle memorised and chanted aloud. As he did with Ganesa as his scribe. Or it in Europe and about a philosopher in Philip Lutgendorf {1987) has shown, may be composed in writing, as India, the philosopher meets a village in a Chicago doctoral dissertation, Kumaravyasa (Vyasa junior) said he carpenter who has a beautiful old Tulsidas’ Ramacaritamanasa is the did in Kannada, but the text kept alive knife, and asks him, “How long have focus of cults, festivals, formal and by gamakis or reciters who know it you had this knife?” The carpenter informal recitations, tableaus, and oral by heart and chant it aloud. There are answers, “Oh, this knife has been in forays into interpretations of the most of course texts, such as proverbs and our family for generations. We have wide-ranging and ingenious kinds. tales, that are usually composed orally changed the handle a few times and The author and the text themselves and orally transmitted, many of which the blade a few times, but it is the are the subject of innumerable tales. never get written down. And texts, like same knife.” Similarly, the structure of Every text like that creates a textual newspapers—written, printed, and relations may remain constant, while community held together by oral silently scanned or read—may never all the cultural details change, as in a traditions as well as written ones. go through an oral phase. Thus, over folktale that goes on changing from Scholars are just now realising that a long history, a story may go through teller to teller. Any fixity, any this interweaving of the oral and many phases. An oral story gets reconstructed archetype, is a fiction, written is true of the Quran and the written up or written down in the a label, a convenience. Bible as well (Graham 1987). But the Jatakas or the Pancatantra. Then (as Oral Traditions: The Indian examples have needed no W. Norman Brown tried to show in a Difference They Make pointing out, except of course to famous paper) the written text may Thus anyone concerned with scholars like ourselves. As a proverb reach other audiences who pick up written texts has to reckon with the in Kannada says, “Why do we need a the story and retell it orally, maybe in oral materials that surround it. This mirror to see a blister on our hands?” other languages, and then it gets contrasts strikingly with modern Yet, we seem to, for we believe in the written down somewhere else, America, where the end of any formal mirror of writing, or even better, the perhaps starting another cycle of oral communication is a written text. mirror of print. transmissions. That’s one kind of You speak in Congress so that your Oral traditions thus enlarge the cycle; another may be entirely oral and speech may be read into the range and they complicate and may run parallel to the oral-written Congressional Record; everything balance the texts we know. Yet we complex. Many of the differences in anybody says in a court is typed up; ignore the oral. Take mythology for our classical texts like the and at the end of what’s supposed to instance. At present, in all our Mahabharata recensions, may be be spontaneous conversation on a TV anthologies of there due to the way the texts do not simply talk show you get the message, “Send is not one folk . Every text is from go from one written form to another three dollars and you can get the the Sanskrit, though occur in but get reworked through oral cycles transcript of this show.” And finally Tamil and Bengali and every other that surround the written word. the most popular TV game show, language. They even occur in scores

8 MANUSHI of written texts like the sthalapuranas, which David Shulman has studied (1980), or the mangal-akavyas which Edward Dimock (1988) has written about. In the oral tradition, that literature without letters (eluta eluttu), there are hundreds more. As Alf Hiltebeital’s work on Draupati eloquently demonstrates (1988), they complement the Sanskritic myths and epics in important ways. Oral traditions give us alternative conceptions of deities that balance and complete, and therefore illuminate the textual conceptions. For instance, the goddesses of pan-Indian mythologies, like Lakshmi and Saraswati, rise out of the sea churned by the gods and the antigods; Parvati is the daughter of the King of The Goddess riding the tiger. A wall drawing, Orissa, 20th Century (From Mountains. They are consort The Earthen Drum) goddesses; their shrines are subordinate to those of their spouses,

Maithili painting depicts Shiva being fanned by Parvati. (From Aditi, The Living Arts of India)

No.69 9 Visnu or Siva. Their images are (encyclopedias of Hindu myths) and are ambivalent, they afflict and heal carefully sculpted to the fingertips. myths based on them, Kali is created (Brubaker 1978). They are usually saumya or mild and by the gods pooling their weapons Such a conception of divinity is docile. They preside over the normal and powers and let loose on the not confined only to female deities. auspicious cycles of life, especially Buffalo Demon whom the male deities Consider the village gods, such as marriages, prosperity, and such. cannot destroy. The emphases, Muttuppattan. He is a Brahmin who But look at the village goddesses details, and major themes of the village falls in love with a cobbler chieftain’s and see how different they are. Their mythologies are quite different. The daughters, marries them, skins and myths tell us of ordinary human village Mariyamman goddesses arise tans cowhides, eats cow’s flesh, dies women who were cheated into out of human deception and tragedy. in battle defending his village against marrying untouchables, or raped by a If the Breast Goddesses are consorts robbers, and becomes a god to whom local villain, or killed and buried by to their male spouses, the Tooth his community of cobblers makes cruel brothers. Out of such Goddess is often a virgin and, if offerings (kodai) of gigantic leather desecrations they rise in fury, grow in married, she tears her villainous male sandals. It is one of the most moving stature to become figures that span consort to pieces. He is later long poems of . Until heaven and earth, with powers of symbolically offered as a buffalo or recently no record or translation of destruction that terrify the village into goat sacrifice to her images. The this tragic story was available. Now submission, sacrifice, and worship. consort goddesses are auspicious, Stuart Blackburn has made an Theirs are not myths of descent or consecrated. The village goddesses effective translation of it (1988). avatara, but of ascent from the human into divine forms. They become boundary goddesses of the village, give it their name, or take their names from the village. While the Sanskritic Breast Goddesses (as I call them because they give us their breasts) receive vegetarian offerings of fruit and flowers, these village goddesses require animal sacrifices and a sprinkle of blood on their devotees. The Tooth Goddesses represent the other side of the mother (as stepmothers do, in folktales), who punish, afflict people with plague and pox, and when propitiated heal the afflicted. They are goddesses of the disrupted lifecycle, deities of crisis; they preside over famine, plague, death, and madness. Their images are often pots and pans, faceless stones, sometimes only a severed head. They dwell outside the village boundaries and are brought in only for special worship, often in times of crisis. Without them, life is not complete, nor is the Hindu view of the divine. The goddess Kali, as the Sanskrit texts present her, is a Sanskritised version of hundreds of village goddesses all over the country and certainly partakes of their fierce Kali, wall painting by village women. Madhubani, . (From The aspects. Yet, in the Sanskrit Earthen Drum)

10 MANUSHI I use the word tragic advisedly. It this time Rama cannot handle it. It is three days before everything else. She is customary to speak of Indian Sita who goes to war and demolishes grows up very quickly, attains literature as having no genre of the impossible demon (Shulman puberty, and wants a man to satisfy tragedy. In the Sanskritic tradition (by 1986). her. Finding no one around, she which I mean both works in Sanskrit In the Upanishadic creation myth, creates out of herself Brahma, the and Sanskritised works in our regional the Primordial Person or Purusa is eldest of the gods, and asks him to languages), it is true there are no alone, needs a companion, and splits grow up quickly and sleep with her. tragedies in the Greek or into male and female, for he is But as he grows up and she urges Shakespearean sense, though some originally the same size as a man and him on, Brahma says, “You are my plays of Bhasa may be an exception. a woman put together. Then the male mother. How can I sleep with you?” It is significant, I think, that his plays pursues the female and unites with She gets angry, calls him a eunuch, were unearthed in South India in areas her, creating mankind. She runs from and burns him down to a heap of ash where dance dramas like Kathakali him, saying, “I was born out of you, I with the eye of fire in the palm of her developed, dramas that do not flinch cannot unite with you,” and becomes hand. The next day, she creates Visnu, from gory scenes, and where also the a cow he becomes a bull and unites who is very handsome. She can’t wait more tragic aspects of the with her, creating cattle. Then she for him to grow up and satisfy her. Mahabharata are fully enacted. Our becomes a she-goat, he a he-goat; But he too will not sleep with his sense of our literature and its they unite and create goats. And so mother. So, in a rage, she burns him possibilities would change if we on down to the ants. down to a heap of ash. On the third included oral epics like the Tamil But see what happens in an oral day, she creates Siva, and urges him villuppattus and the Tulu paddanas folk purana sung ceremonially on to grow up and become her lover. He (e.g., Claus 1989) in our studies. Madeswara hill (Karnataka) every too has misgivings until she says, (Fortunately, a book of essays on year by several bardic groups during “Look around and see what happened Indian oral epics has just been the festival devoted to this hero/ to your brothers who refused me.” He published: Blackburn et al. 1986; see saint/ god called Madeswara turns around and sees the two heaps also Beck 1982; Roghair 1982). Oral (Ramanujan 1985). The purana begins of ash that were once his brothers. epics embody a theory of emotion with a creation myth. He sizes up the situation and says to different from that of rasa, explore The Primordial Goddess is born his mother, “All right, I’ll do as you ranges in the emotional say. You want me to be your spectrum like shame, terror, husband, don’t you? Don’t you fury, and disgust that are not want your husband to be at least usually explored in the Sanskrit equal to you? Don’t you want to poems and plays. And how can teach him all your skills and give we, mere mortals, do without him your powers?” The Mother them? Goddess, Ammavaru, is The oral traditions offer us delighted and says, “Of course, also a different view of the I want you to have everything,” female from the views found in and teaches him all her magic the written texts. When the arts and bestows on him all her Ramayana is sung by the powers. Then Siva, now grown Tamburi Dasayyas of Mysore, up, says, “Let’s dance. You must the center of attention is Sita, do whatever I do. Let’s see who her birth, marriage, exile, is better.” They whirl around in a sufferings, and final fantastic cosmic dance together, disappearance into Mother each mirroring the other, until Earth. In the Tamil story of suddenly, Siva puts his hand on Mayili Ravanan, set in a time his head in a dance movement. after Rama has defeated the His mother, following him, puts ten-headed Ravana, a new her hand on her own head and thousand-headed Ravana the eye of fire in her palm begins arises to threaten the gods, and Primordial goddess, Anthropomorphic form, 2nd to burn her. As she burns, she Millennium B.C. (From Aditi)

No.69 11 curses Siva, “You, you refused a of looking at male/female power prays to Siva and receives from him woman. May one half of your body relations very different from anything the boon that Siva, with all his goblin become female, may you never get rid we know from the better-known attendants, should go with him to of her!” That’s how Siva came to be written texts. Lanka. Siva gives him the boon, but the lord whose one half is woman. I could go on to talk about doesn’t really wish to go. He tells Then as his mother burned down and alternative views of the gods, , Ravana that he can carry him as a became a heap of ash, the eye of fire and chastity, as well as why tales linga all the way, but that he should that lived in her hand came to Siva themselves are told. Since I have not put it down anywhere until he and said it had nowhere to go. So he talked about them elsewhere, I shall reaches Lanka. Ravana agrees. When took it and slapped it on his forehead. content myself with giving you some he gets to Gokarna, he must answer That’s how he got the third eye. short examples. The gods in the the call of nature. He cannot hold the After his mother had gone up in puranas and the heroes in the epics sacred linga in his hands while he flames, Siva looked around and found have bodies without bodily functions: takes a crap, can he? So he puts it the two heaps of ash that were once they are not supposed to sweat, down, and the linga begins to grow his brothers. With his newly learned urinate, defecate, or pass wind. They downwards and take root. Ravana powers, he revived them. Now the do not blink their eyes nor do their hurries back and tries to twist it out of three gods, Brahma, Visnu, and Siva, feet touch the ground. But in folk the earth, but he is not able to. That’s said to each other, “There’s work to traditions, they have bodies, they are how Gokarna has a linga and they do. We must create the worlds.” One embodied, localised, domesticated. In say that, if you dig under it, you’ll of them said, “How can we create the place legend of Gokarna (which I find that it’s twisted. Aldous Huxley without women?” Then Siva sees the heard from Girish Karnad), Ravana once complained that, even for a third heap of ash that was once realistic novelist like Tolstoy, the their mother, divides it into three heroines never go to the smaller heaps, and gives them bathroom nor do they life. Out of these portions of their menstruate. In the village oral mother’s ash, come Lakshmi, traditions, they do. Gods like Saraswati, and Parvati, the three Ganesa, heroes like Bhima, consorts of the Hindu trinity, who demons like Ravana, or even then marry them. Creation begins. poets like Vyasa cannot help In the Sanskritic myth, the going to the bathroom, and male gods create the goddess goddesses like Ganga and Gauri and give her their powers. In the menstruate. As the bhakti poem foregoing myth it is exactly in says: reverse. She gives Siva his Bodied, one will hunger. powers. In the Sanskritic myth it Bodied, one will lie. is the father figures that lust after O you, don’ t you rib and taunt the daughters. Here the female me/ too has her share of sexual desire, again for having a body: made explicit. She is cheated out body Thyself for once like me of her powers by the male god and/ who uses them to destroy her. see what happens, Further more, her sons still end O Ramanatha! up marrying portions of their Devara Dasimayya, tenth mother—both Jung and Freud century, Kannada would be interested in that. But (tr. by Ramanujan 1973:107) the male gods marry her only Folklore that is in many ways after fragmenting and close to bhakti traditions, gives domesticating her into a nice tame to them and takes from them, threesome—feminists would be sharing genres, motifs, and interested in that. This is a way Shadow play puppet illustrating Sita, Andhra attitudes, and seems not only to Pradesh, 19th Century. (Crafts Museum)

12 MANUSHI ask the gods to embody themselves, He bids them farewell from his boat, I can go on forever, detailing what but actually envisions them as having making a short speech: “O brothers happens to karma or chastity in the bodies with all the needs and ills that and sisters, please go home now. I take oral tales,* retelling the bawdy tales flesh is heir to. leave of you now, but I’ll be back in of the villages about clever women When Rama and Laksmana come fourteen years.” Then he leaves, and who cheat on their husbands and get as wandering exiles in the forest wanders through the forests. Sita is away with it, unlike all the chaste toward a place (now in Hassan abducted by Ravana, Rama gathers the women of the epics who never cheat district in Mysore), they haven’t had monkey army, kills Ravana, and returns or the unchaste ones who are a bath for days and are stinking. Rama victorious with Sita. When he arrives chastened by their infidelity like especially stinks to high heaven. In at the spot where he had bid his people Ahalya. But I think I’ve said enough the water of the stream near the farewell fourteen years earlier, he sees to argue the essential relevance of village, he washes himself clean, and a group standing there, their hair folklore to Indian studies and the so the village is named grown grey, their nails long and uncut, alternative views and systems folklore Ramanathapura. In Sanskrit, it would their feet rooted to the banks of the carries. Folk materials also comment mean, the place of Rama’s lord; in Sarayu. He asks them who they are. continually on official and orthodox Kannada, however, natha means They say, “O Rama, you forgot us views and practices in India. So I wish “stench, stink,” which makes when you took leave. You bade to end with a satiric tale about kings, Ramanathapura mean “the place farewell only to the men and women, and disciples, the legal process, where Rama stank.” Such bilingual calling them brothers and sisters. We belief in rebirth, and the very logic of puns highlight the conceptual are the eunuchs of Ayodhya. We have karma that looks for causes in infinite difference between Sanskrit and the waited for you here all these fourteen regress. I shall tell it without any mother tongue, and the way the latter years.” Rama is very touched by their further comment than that here, if we de-Sanskritises not only the word but devotion and, feeling guilty at his listen, we can hear the voice of what the god himself. negligence, gives them a boon: “O is fashionably called the subaltern— Folk renditions of the pan-Indian eunuchs of Ayodhya, may you be the woman, the peasant, the epics and myths not only bring the reborn in India again and rule the nonliterate, those who are marginal to gods home, making the daily world country as the next Congress party!” the courts of kings and offices of the mythic, they also contemporise them. (Ramanujan 1986) bureaucrats, the centers of power. In village enactments the Ramayana, when Sita has to choose her In the Kingdom of Foolishness* bridegroom, princes from all over the universe appear as suitors. In a North In the Kingdom of foolishness, told for fear of death. The king and Indian folk version, an Englishman both the king and the minister were the minister were delighted at the with a pith helmet, a solar topee, and idiots. They didn’t want to run things success of their project. a hunting rifle regularly appears as like other kings. So they decided to A guru and a disciple arrived in one of the suitors of Sita. After all, change night into day and day into the city. It was a beautiful city, it was since the eighteenth century the night. They ordered everyone to be broad daylight, but there was no one English have been a powerful awake at night, till their fields and run about. Everyone was asleep, not a presence in India and ought to have their businesses only after dark; and mouse stirring. Even the cattle had a place in any epic “bridegroom they should all go to bed as soon as been taught to sleep. The two choice” or svayamvara. the sun came up. If anyone strangers were amazed by what they In a Karnataka performance, Rama disobeyed, he would be punished with saw and wandered around till is exiled, and as he takes the little boat death. The people did as they were evening, when suddenly the whole on the river Sarayu to go to the jungle, town woke up and went about its daily all of Ayodhya follows him in tears. * This tale reproduced here in translation business. from my forthcoming book of Kannada The two men were hungry. Now folktales, is also told in many other regions that the shops were open, they went and . The Stith Thomp- * I have said little about Indian oral tales, to buy some groceries. To their though I end this paper with an example. son index of interna•tional tale types (1961) See Beck (1987) for a recent, wide selection identifies it as 1534 ‘ ‘An Innocent Man aston•ishment, they found that with anthropological notes, andNarayan Chosen to Fit the Stake”. This tale has so far everything cost the same, a single (1989) for a fresh contextual study of tales been recorded inKashmiri,Kannada, Tamil, duddu (a small coin)—whether they in religious teaching. Marathi, Hindi, Garhwali, and so on. bought a measure of rice or a bunch

No.69 13 of bananas, it cost a duddu. The guru murdered a man. We have to punish given some gold to the goldsmith to and his dis•ciple were delighted. They you.” make some jewelry for me. He was a had never heard of anything like this. “Lord,” said the helpless lazy scoundrel. He made so many They could buy all the food they merchant. “I didn’t put up the wall. excuses, said he would give it now wanted for a rupee. It’s really the fault of the man who and he would give it then and so on built the wall. He didn’t build it right. When they had cooked the food all day. He made me walk up and down You should punish him.” and eaten, the guru realised that this to his house a dozen times. That was “Who is that?” when this bricklayer fellow saw me. was a kingdom of fools and it “My lord, this wall was built in my wouldn’t be a good idea for them to It’s not my fault, my lord, it’s that father’s time. I know the man. He’s an damned goldsmith’s. stay there. “This is no place for us. old man now. He lives nearby.” “Poor thing, she’s absolutely Let’s go,” he said to his disciple. But The king sent out messengers to right,” thought the king, weighing the the disciple didn’t want to leave the bring in the bricklayer who had built evi•dence. “We’ve got the real culprit place. Everything was cheap here. All the wall. They brought him tied hand at last. Get the goldsmith wherever he he wanted was good cheap food. The and foot. “You there, did you build this is hiding. At once!” guru said, “They are all fools. This The king’s bailiffs searched for the won’t last very long and one can’t man’s wall in his father’s time?’ “Yes, my lord, I did.” goldsmith who was hiding in a corner tell what they’ll do to you next.” “What kind of wall is this that you of his shop. When he heard the But the disciple wouldn’t listen to built? It has fallen on a poor man and accu•sation against him, he had his the guru’s wisdom. He wanted to stay. killed him. You’ve murdered him. We own story to tell. The guru finally gave in and said, “Do have to punish you by death.” “My lord,” he said, “I’m a poor what you want. I’m going,” and he Before the king could order the goldsmith. It’s true I made this harlot left. The disciple stayed on, ate his fill execution, the poor bricklayer pleaded, woman come many times to my door. everyday, bananas and ghee and rice “Please listen to me before you give I gave her excuses because I couldn’t and wheat, and grew fat as a streetside your orders. It’s true I built this wall finish making her jewelry before I sacred bull. and it was no good. But that was finished the rich merchant’s orders. One bright day, a thief broke into because my mind was not on it. I They had a wedding coming, and they a rich merchant’s house. He had made remember very well a harlot who was wouldn’t wait. You know how going up and down that street all day a hole in the wall, sneaked in, and as impatient rich men are!” with her anklets jingling and I couldn “Who is this rich merchant who he was carrying out his loot, the wall ‘t keep my eyes or my mind on the of the old house collapsed on his head kept you from finishing this poor wall I was building. You must get that woman’s jewelry, made her walk up and killed him on the spot. His brother harlot. I know where she lives.” and down, which distracted this ran to the king and complained:” Your “You’re right. The case deepens. brick•layer, which made a mess of his Highness, when my brother was We must look into it. It is not easy to wall, which has now fallen on an pur•suing his ancient trade, a wall fell judge such Complicated cases. Let’s innocent man and killed him? Can you on him and killed him. This merchant get that harlot wherever she is.” name him?” is to blame. He should have built a The harlot, now an old woman, came trembling to the court. The goldsmith named the good strong wall. You must punish merchant and he was none other than the wrong-doer and compensate the “Did you walk up and down that street many years ago, while this poor the original owner of the house where fam•ily for this injustice.” man was building this wall? Did you the wall had fallen. Now justice had The king said, “Justice will be see him?’ come full circle, thought the king, back done. Don’t worry,” and at once “Yes, my lord. I remember it very to the merchant. When he was rudely summoned the owner of the house. well.” sum•moned back to the court, he When the merchant arrived, the “So you did walk up and down, arrived crying, ‘’It’s not me, but my king asked him questions. with your anklets jingling. You were father who ordered the jewelry! He’s “What’s your name?” young and you tempted him. So he dead! I’m innocent!” “Such and such, Your Highness.” built a bad wall. It has fallen on a poor But the king consulted his “Were you at home when the dead burglar and killed him. You’ve killed minister and ruled decisively, “It’s true man burgled your house?” an innocent man. You’ll have to be your father is the true murderer. He’s “Yes, my lord. He broke in and the punished.” dead but somebody must be punished wall was weak. It fell on him.” She thought for a minute and said, in his place. You’ve inherited “The accused pleads guilty. Your “My lord, wait. I know now why I was everything from that criminal father wall killed this man’s brother. You have walking up and down that street. I had of yours, his riches as well as his sins.

14 MANUSHI I knew at once, even when I set eyes first! Put me to death first, not him!” two and, as arranged beforehand with on you that you were at the root of The guru and the disciple now got their loyal servants, were taken to the this horrible crime. You must die.” into a fight about who should go first. stake and promptly executed. And he ordered a new stake to be The king was puzzled by this When the bodies were taken down made ready for the execution. As the behavior. He asked the guru, “Why to be thrown to crows and vultures servants sharpened the stake and got do you want to die? We chose him the people panicked. They saw before it ready for final impaling of the because we needed a fat man for the them the dead bodies of the king and crimi•nal, it occurred to the minister stake.” the minister. The city was in that the rich merchant was somehow “You shouldn’t ask me such confusion. too thin to be properly executed by questions. Put me to death first.” All night they mourned and the stake. He appealed to the king’s “Why? There’s some mystery discussed the future of the kingdom. common sense. The king too worried here. As a wise man you must make Some people suddenly thought of the about it. me understand.” guru and the disciple and caught up “What shall we do?” he said, “Will you promise to put me to with them as they were preparing to when suddenly it struck him that all death, if I tell you?” said the guru. leave town unnoticed. We people they needed to do was to get a man The king gave him his solemn word. need a king and a minister, said fat enough to fit the stake. The The guru took him aside, out of the someone. Others agreed. They servants were immediately all over servants’ earshot, and whispered to begged the guru and the disciple to town looking for a man who would fit him, “Do you know why we want to become their king and their minister. the stake, and their eyes fell on the die right now, the two of us? We’ve It didn’ t take many arguments to disciple who had fattened himself for been all over the world but we’ve persuade the disciple, but it took long months on bananas and rice and never found a city like this or a king to persuade the guru. They finally wheat and ghee. like you. That stake is the stake of the agreed to rule the king•dom of the “What have I done wrong? I’m god of justice. It’s new, it has never foolish king and the silly minister, on innocent. I’m a sanyasi!” he cried. had a criminal on it. Whoever dies on the condition that they would change “That may be true. But it’s the it first will be reborn as the king of all the old laws. From then on, night would royal decree that we should find a man this country. And whoever goes next again be night and day would again be day, fat enough to fit the stake,” they said, will be the future minister of this and you could get nothing for a duddu. It and carried him to the place of country. We’re sick of living the became like any other place. execution. He remembered his wise ascetic life. It would be nice to enjoy Bibliography guru’s words: “This is a city of fools. ourselves as king and minister for a Beck, Brenda E.F. You don’t know what they will do while. Now keep your word, my lord, 1987 Folktales of India. Chicago: next.” While he was waiting for death, and put us to death. Me first, University of Chicago Press. he prayed to his guru in his heart, remember.” 1982 The Three Twins: The Telling Of A asking him to hear his cry wherever The king was now thrown into South Indian Folk Epic. Bloomington: he was. The guru saw everything in a deep thought. He didn’t want to lose Indi•ana University Press. vision. He had magical powers; he the kingdom to someone else in the Blackburn, Stuart could see far and he could see the next round of life. He needed time. So 1988 Singing of Birth and Death: Texts future as he could see the present and he ordered the execution postponed in Performance. Philadelphia: University the past. He arrived at once to save till the next day and talked in secret of Pennsylvania Press. his disciple who had gotten himself with his minister. “It’s not right for us Blackburn, Stuart et al. (eds.) into a scrape again through love of to give the kingdom to others in the 1989 Oral Epics in India. Berkeley: food. next life. Let’s go up the stake University of California Press. As soon as he arrived, he scolded ourselves and we’ll be reborn as king Blackburn, Stuart, and A.K. Ramanujan the disciple and told him something and min•ister again. Holy men do not (eds.) in a whisper. Then he went to the king tell lies,” he said and the minister 1986 Another Harmony: New Essays on and addressed him. agreed. the . Berkeley: “O wisest of kings, who is So he told the executioners, “We’ll University of California Press. greater? The guru or the disciple?” send the criminals tonight. When the Brubaker, Richard Lee “Of course the Guru. No doubt first man comes to you, put him first 1978 The Ambivalent Mistress: A Study about it. Why do you ask?” to death. Then do the same to the of South Indian Village Goddesses and Their Religious Meaning. PhD. “Then put me to the stake first. second man. Those are orders. Don’t dissertation. University of Chicago. Put my disciple to death after me.” make any mistakes.” Claus, Peter When the disciple heard this, he That night, they went secretly to 1989 “Behind the Text: Perfor•mances caught on and began to clamor. the prison, released the guru and and Ideology in a Tulu Oral Tradition.” “Me first! You brought me here disciple, disguised themselves as the In Blackburn et al.,pp. 55-74.

No.69 15 Collingwood, R.G. 1986 “Two Realms of Kannada 1983 An Essay on Philosophical Folklore.” In Blackburn and Method. Oxford: The Ramanujan, eds., pp. 41-75. Clarendon Press (originally 1985 “On Folk Puranas.” published in 1933). Confer•ence on Puranas, Dimock, Edward C. University of Wisconsin, 1989 The Sound of Silent Guns Madison, August, mss. and Other Essays. New Delhi: 1983 “The Indian Oedipus.” In Oxford University Press. Oedipus: A Folklore Casebook, Dundes, Alan, and Carl R. Pagter Alan Dundes and Lowell 1978 Work Hard and You Edmunds, eds. New York: Shall Be Rewarded: Urban Garland Press, pp. 234-261. Folklore, from the Paperwork 1973 Speaking of Siva. Empire. Bloomington: Indiana Harmondsworth, Great Britain: University Press. Penguin Books. Dumezil, Georges Roghair, Gene H. 1968 Mythe et Epopee. Paris: 1982 The Epic of Palnadu: A Gallimard. Study and Translation of Palnati Finnegan, Ruth Vinula katha, a Telugu Oral 1977 Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Tradition from Andhra Significance and Social Pradesh, India. New York: Context. Cambridge: Cambridge Oxford University Press. University Press. Shulman, David Graham, William A. 1986 “Battle as Metaphor 1987 Beyond the Written Word: inTamil Folk and Classical Oral Aspects of Scripture in the Traditions.” In Blackburn and History of Religion. Cambridge: Ramanujan, eds., pp. 105-130. Cambridge University Press. 1980 Tamil Temple Myths: Hiltebeitel, Alf Sacrifice and Divine Marriage 1988 The Cult ofDraupadi. in the South Indian Saiva Mythologies from Gingee to Tradition. Princeton: Princeton Kuruksetra. Chicago: University Press. University of Chicago Press. Singer, Milton Lutgendorf, Philip 1972 When a Great Tradition 1987 The Life of the Text: Modernizes: An Anthropo- Tulasidas’s Ramacarita- logical Approach to Indian manasa in Performance. Civilization. Chicago: Universtiy Ph.D. dissertation. University of Chicago Press. of Chicago. Staal,J.F. Narayan, Kirin 1961 Nambudiri Veda Storytellers, Saints, and 1989 Recitation. Disputationes Scoundrels: Folk Narrative in Reno Trajectinae, ed. J. Gonda, Hindu Religious Teaching. vol. 5. Hague: Mouton. Philadelphia: University of Taylor, Archer Pennsylvania Press. Ramanujan, A.K. 1951 English Riddles from Oral 1989 “Where Mirrors Are Tradition. Berkeley: University Windows: Toward an of California Press. Anthology of Reflections.” Thompson, Stith, and Antti History of Religions., vol. 28, Amatus Aarne no.3, (February), pp. 187-216. 1961 The Types of the Folktale.: 1987 “Introduction.” In A Classification and Indian Folktales, Beck et al., Bibliography 2nd rev. Helsinki: pp. xxv-xxxi. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia. 1987 “The Relevance of South Thompson, Stith, and Warren Asian Folklore.” In Indian Folklore II, edited by Peter E.Roberts Claus, J. Handoo, and D.P. 1960 Types of Indic Oral Tales: Pattanayak. Mysore: Central Grama Devata - great Earth Mother. India, Pakistan and Ceylon. Institute of Indian Languages, Helsinki: Suomalainen (From The Earthen Drum) pp. 79-156. Tiedeakatemia. r

16 MANUSHI