Nectar Gaze and Poison Breath: An Analysis and Translation of the Rajasthani Oral Narrative of Devn-Ar-Ayaṇ

ISBN-13: 9780195150193 / Angielski / Twarda / 2005 / 576 str.

Aditya Malik

Opis

This book offers a detailed study of the oral narrative of Shri Devnarayan along with the first English translation of this popular Rajasthani folk narrative. The narrative extolling the deeds of Lord Devnarayan is performed by itinerant singers during all night vigils in front of a 9-meter long, elaborately painted cloth scroll that depicts scenes and characters from the story. Aditya Malik uses the narrative to explore and ask a range of innovative questions relevant to the study of Indian folk culture and Hinduism as a whole: How is orality conceptualized and practiced? What is the relationship between spoken and visual signs? How do Devnarayan's devotees create multiple discourses concerning religion, community, and history within and though the medium of the narrative? Malik's analysis suggests that the narrative provides a framework for establishing linkages between different communities, past and present, spoken word and visual image, as well as contending religious ideologies. His interpretation is interspersed with excerpts from interviews with devotees and singers, other tales and texts, and observations from his field research that together invoke the worlds created by the narrative.

Recenzje

Aditya Malik's new work on the Devnarayan epic of Rajasthan provides valuable access in English to an important oral and print tradition of Western India and a comprehensive introduction to related scholarly issues ... This field of research does not often see new additions, so a work of this kind and scope is particularly welcome. The translations are beautifully rendered ... This work makes a significant contribution to the study of oral narrative in South Asia and in comparative contexts, to a broader discourse on the representation of history and the past within South Asian intellectual and cultural traditions, to the larger study of folk and popular religious traditions, and to the crucial interaction between oral and written texts and performance Aditya Malik's meticulous and sensitive study of the Rajasthani Devnarayan epic opens up a world of surpassing richness. The sung epic text, hitherto unstudied, is one of the most colorful and imaginative known to us from South Asia. Malik interprets