On an Auspicious Day, at Dawn -: Studies in Tulu Culture and Oral LiteratureThe book consists of a collection of essays on aspects of Tulu oral literature and its cultural and religious context. Taking sung poetic ritual texts from the west coast of South India (coastal Karnataka) as her starting point, the author addresses the relationship between text structure and the social and geographical distribution of particular local and subregional cults; questions of gender and genre, of the correlation between narrative and ritual dramatization especially with respect to death, and of success and failure of rituals in the local perception. One essay studies features of South Indian popular cults in a wider perspective. Two of the nine essays discuss historical material relating to Basel Mission activities in the area and compare texts collected in the 19th century with versions collected by the author in the 1980s. The last paper provides a short synopsis of the author's 1995 German monograph on the topic. |
Contents
An oral Tulutext collected in the 19th century | 29 |
The place of a Tuļu pāḍdana among interrelated oral traditions | 75 |
Subgenre distinction in the Tulu paddanas | 109 |
Narrated and Dramatized Death in Tulu Culture | 127 |
On Success and Failure | 153 |
Common terms and phrases
Aitappa andudu pandudu annual festival rituals arasu Bant Banțe Basel Mission Bhatt bhūta Billavas biruve Brahmin Brückner buffaloes Burnell Burnell's būta caste Cauța Cautas charisma Claus cult daiva dancer dānE death deified deity demon Dēvu Pūñja Dhumavati divine dramatic episodes example female fieldsong four Seṭṭis Ghats goddess Gummaḍa Hermann Gundert hero Hinduism human impersonators India Indra invocation Jaina Jainism Jumādi Kannada Kannada script Kannalaye Kannalaye's Karkal king Koddabbu male maltudu Mangalore Mangalore University Männer Männer's collection manorial manorial house māya mentioned missionaries Mūḍbidre myth Nalike narration narrative non-Brahmin oral pāḍdana palace Pambada paṇḍini Pañjurli Parava patron person possession priest present Puttige referred religious ritual drama ritual performance ritual recitation sāna Sanskrit Saundatti says scene script shrine Siddu singers social Sōmanatha Sontheimer soothsayer South Kanara story Svāmi Nandēdi sword temple tradition translation Tuļu Tulu text Tuluva village voñji worship yānu