Introduction

Introduction The study of Sanskrit texts constituting and representing the high culture was the main focus of the discipline of Indology from its very beginnings. The shift toward regional cultures and compositions originating from local folk traditions was made much later1 and it was not until relatively recently that works popular only in oral transmission (orature) drew scholars’ attention2 . This change of scholarly focus to works created by regional culture with its oral tradition within local borders determines a new perception and understanding of what Indian high culture really is. A new question can thus be raised: to what extent does what we understand to be the high culture represent the form created by scholars-specialists of Indology who tried to reconstruct Indian culture by analysing 1 Among the first scholars to conduct a local study on a particular region of India were James Tod, the author of a monumental work on Rājasthān, published in 1829 and 1832. The work includes Rājasthānī legends and stories collected in various regions of Rājasthān, transmitted only orally; Temple who in 1884 published legends and romances popular in Pañjāb; and Elwin Verrier, who collected folk songs from the eastern part of the region where the Hindī language was spoken, i.e. Chattīsgaṛh (1946). See J. Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Rajas’than or the Central and Western Rajpoot States of India, vol. I and II, Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., London 1997 (1st published 1829 and 1932); R.C. Temple, The Legends of the Panjāb, vol. I and II, Department of Languages, Punjab, Patiala 1963; E. Verrier, Folk-songs of Chattisgarh, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1946. 2 Among the first Indian pioneers, the authors of monographic works on folk literature of particular regions in Northern India India are Satyendra, Braj-lok-sāhitya kā adhyayan, Sāhitya Ratn Bhaṇḍār, Āgrā 1949; Satyavrat Sinhā, Bhojpurī lokgāthā, Hindustānī Ekeḍemī, Ilāhābād 1957; Śaṅkar Lāl Yādav, Hariyānā pradeś kā loksāhitya, Hindustānī Ekeḍemī, Ilāhābād 1960; Mohanlāl Bābulkar, Gaṛhvālī lok-sāhitya kā vivecanātmak adhyayan, Hindī Sāhitya Sammelan, Prayāg 1964; Satyā Gupt, Khaṛībolī kā lok-sāhitya, Hindustānī Ekeḍemī, Ilāhābād 1965; K{ṣṇadev Upādhyāy, Bhojpurī lok-gīt, Hindī Sāhitya Sammelan, Prayāg 1966; Bagavatīprasād Śukla, Baghelī bhāṣā aur sāhitya, Sāhitya Bhavan Prā. Limiṭeḍ, Ilāhābād 1971. It should also be noted that in 1942 folk songs of Rājasthān were published. See Sūryakaraṇ Pārīk, Rājasthānī lok-gīt, Prayāg 1942. 13 INTRODUCTION Sanskrit texts alone, and to what extent is the so-called high culture a result of mutual, multicultural interference of regional or popular traditions along with the contribution of local languages? The narrative tradition of the Ḍholā–Mārū story, which begun in the folk culture of Rājasthān, i.e. in North-Western India, the region with very distinctive cultural features, is a good example of a different pattern of artistic inspiration: the influence of a regional (low) culture on high culture. Map 1. The Ḍholā–Mārū story in India (grey colour). The story is also transmitted orally in Sindh and Pañjāb in Pākistān The aim of this book is to present the narrative tradition of the Ḍholā–Mārū story which is popular in almost the entire region of North India and in the 14 INTRODUCTION eastern part of Pākistān in its border-land with India (see map 1), and on the example of the Ḍholā–Mārū story we shall demonstrate the typical process and characteristic features of the Indian pattern of constructing a narrative . An analysis of oral versions of the story popular in local cultures of different regions, such as: Sindh, Rājasthān, Gujarāt, Pañjāb, Uttar Pradeś, Bihār, Madhya Pradeś and Chattīsgaṛh, reveals a general paradigm of the way an Indian story is constructed. Such an analysis is helpful not only for a better understanding of the Indian narrative tradition in general, but also restores Indian orature (oral literature) to its rightful place in the discipline of indology . The Ḍholā–Mārū story is known and studied mainly in the form of a medieval Rājasthānī poem, but it represents a much richer and more wide-spread narrative tradition, a narrative tradition that has been developing for almost one thousand years. This book presents the result of the study of material gathered not only in Rājasthān, the homeland of the story, but from a wide region of North India and some parts of Central India . A thorough examination of the way the story travelled through India (it reached, for example, the Narmadā Valley in Central India, a place inhabited chiefly by tribes) helps to reveal the typical mechanism for constructing a story in Indian culture, such as a juxtaposition and permanent reshuffling of well-known, popular motifs, threads, episodes and even entire stories. The mixture of old and widely-known elements combined creates a very new quality. On the one hand, we can state that there is the separate narrative tradition of the Ḍholā–Mārū (the story which most probably from its very beginning developed on multiple levels in different genres of folk literature), but, on the other hand, we cannot distinguish this story as unique and drastically different from a rich variety of other Indian stories . This apparent paradox in fact expresses the essence of Indian narrative traditions. To understand it better we must also take under consideration a sense of originality (and reserved rights) different from those of the West (or Europe). Originality in Indian culture does not require a completely new original work to be presented, a work at that point entirely un-composed. It requires rather that a well-known, popular theme be presented in a new way . This is due to a fact of high context of Indian culture which constantly makes reference to pan-Indian symbols, popular motifs and widely- known elements without the need to explain or put them in their original context at every mention . The narrative of Ḍholā and Mārū is a love-story. It has no deeper religious meaning and its main characters are not deified. It is, therefore, easier to interpolate and modify such story which is thus able to obtain superregional status3 . In one 3 S.H. Blackburn, Patterns of Development for Indian Oral Epics, in S.H. Blackburn, Peter J. Claus, Joyce B. Flueckiger, Susan S. Wadley (eds.), Oral Epics in India, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 1989, p. 31. 15 INTRODUCTION version of the Ḍholā–Mārū story popular in the Thar Desert in Rājasthān we find many elements taken from the local culture, and the heroine Mārū is depicted as the most excellent representative of the region . When the story crosses the border of its homeland, however, the local elements disappear from the story. From an analysis of its variants, which are popular outside Rājasthān, it becomes clear that the story gained popularity due to combining it with a more-widely known story from the Mahābhārata, the Nal–Damayantī story . The Ḍholā–Mārū story has been compared with a pan-Indian love-story. This means that a new quality is created, but that it consists of elements well-known from different sources . The court literature of Rājasthān, which includes poems composed about the love of Ḍholā and Mārū, represents the literary tradition of the Ḍholā–Mārū narrative. This tradition is confined to Rājasthān. The oral tradition of the Ḍholā– Mārū story which spread far beyond Rājasthān is, however, much richer. This oral tradition is scarcely studied . It is worthy of note that the text of the Ḍholā–Mārū literary tradition is available only as the poem Ḍholā Mārū rā dūhā (DMrD), which exists in the form of a compilation published in the first half of the 20th century by its first editors. Taking this into account, we may accept, as other scholars also do, the DMrD as a source text . The acceptance of the DMrD as the main source is justifiable because this field of study is much wider than analysis of the text in a classical Indological way . In the field of oral anthropology the existence of a written text does not mean that it is the original version . We accept every version of the story as equally important. We do not know, however, whether such an original version of the Ḍholā–Mārū story ever existed . The poem DMrD is thus just another example of the method used to construct a story according to Indian tradition . Culture can be understood as a constant process in a permanent state of change. It is thus difficult to grasp. It cannot be discerned when something begins and when something ends in the culture because people, the medium of the culture, are constantly changing it . In the same way the average person contains a multitude of narrations . These narrations are usually equiponderant transformations of previous versions. Bearing this in mind, for the purpose of this book, texts recorded on tape, CDs, a popular film about Ḍholā and Mārū, songs recorded commercially and a comic version of the story shall also be accepted as source texts as well as literary elaborations. Whilst analysing of various versions, we tried when possible to indicate pan-Indian motifs incorporated in the story, although this is not an easy task. Whilst we can find some works on early Indian fairy tales and stories from such collections as Pañcatantra, Hitopadeśa or Kathāsaritsāgara, there is still a lot to do in the field of pan-Indian folk tales. This is further complicated by the permanent intermingling of different levels of the culture in the Indian 16 INTRODUCTION narrative tradition. It makes it difficult to point out and describe accurately the original context from which a particular story or a fairy tale comes .

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