FOLKLORE STUDY IN ODISHA

: AN OVER VIEW

Dr Mahendra K Mishra
Folklore Foundation
Orissa
 All men are intellectuals, one could therefore say:
but not all men have the function of intellectuals
in society. [...] There is no human activity from
which every form of intellectual participation can
be excluded: homo faber cannot be separated
from Homo sapiens. (Antonio Gramsci)
ORISSAN FOLKLORE STUDY HAS THREE PHASES

 British Administrators
 Missionaries
 Nationalists
 Post independent
 John Beams the first Collector of Balesore District was
literally the first collector of Orissa folklore also. He wrote,

 “Human nonsense, like human sense, is very much the same

everywhere, and it is only because in ruling men one must
take their nonsense into consideration quite as earnestly as
their sense, that these scraps of folk-lore are worth recording
at all.”(John Beams: in Lokaratna Vol I, 2008 PP.1-6)


 
 He also branded these mantras and beliefs as
rubbish.
 Consider

“I do not attempt to make sense of all this rubbish.

It is sufficient to observe that there are human
beings who believe in its efficacy.” (Ibid)
 From 1872- to 1946 many scholars who served
in the government had written at least 30
books on Oriya proverb, tales, songs, agricultural
proverbs , chants, mantras, etc. and had
propagated folklore as a topic of human study.
 During these days folklore was guided by
anthropologists’ exploration of savages. Local
elites considered our own local nonliterate as
savage guided by Britishers’ view point.
 DEVENDRA SATYARTHI
 Devendra Satyarthi, a Gandhian, travelled across
the country and in 1931 he came to Orissa and
collected folklore from the people. Gandhi said,
Folklore is literature of the people.
 Pundit Gopabandhu said, elites may be the
head of the society , but the body of the society
is the common people. We have to revitalize the
tradition and accept the modernity in a way to
build up a national culture.
 ORIYA FOLKLORISTS
 The Satyavadi group of writers ( 1910 – 1925 )
glorified the land of Orissa with the legends and
myths of Orissa with the folk-derived literature.
 Sri Gopal Chandra Praharaj, who was an advocate of
Cuttack High Court dedicated his life for collection
of folktales and legends and Oriya language.
 Chakradhara Mahapatra –assisted Devendra
Satyarthi and wrote books on folklore
  
MISSIONARIES AND ANTHROPOLOGISTS /PHILANTHROPISTS

 Verrier Elwin, Cecil Henry Bompas ,W G

Archer, collected ethnographic data in Orissa.
 Elwin’s work on Tribal Myths of Orissa is a
memorable collection.
 Verrier Elwin was very much in touch with Stith
Thompson and was contributing to the Motif
Index.
FOLKLORE STUDY IN POST INDEPENDENT ORISSA

Phase I is from 1947 to 1980

phase II is 1980 to 2000 and later.

 GANDHIAN AS FOLKLORISTS
 Padmashri Laxmi Narayan Sahu President of
Indian Folklore Society Calcutta( defaunct )
 Prof Chittaranjan Dash,
 These scholars are more close to the community
than anybody else
1947 TO 1980

Pundit Neelakantha Dash

During his rest from politics in 1945- 1956, he worked on
Orissan culture and literature in which he had discussed
on oral tradition and its written expression.
His analytical model was
Parampara( tradition, past)
paristhiti( current situation, present) and
Purodrusti ( future vision) in the study of literature and his
definition of literature was no less than the definition of
folklore or culture.
LOKARATNA KUNJABIHARI DASH

 Founder of Oriya folklore .

 In 1957 ,Dr Kunja Bihari Dash from Viswa Bharati
did his first PhD on Folklore of Orissa. His
theses were Odia Loka geeta O kahani. Pundit
Neelakantha Dash was the examiner of his theses.
 His followers in Viswa Bharati studied Oriya
folklore and established it as a discipline
VISWA BHARATI SCHOOLS OF ORIYA FOLKORISTS

 Dr Bhabagrahi Mishra ,a student of Dr R M Dorson

in Indiana University, Bloomington. Dr Bhabagrahi
Mishra was confined to the theory of
anthropological approach of folklore study along
with psychoanalytical method, comparative method
and so on. He was one who introduced a
systematic folklore scholarship in Orissa, but due to
his discontinuation from academic domain he could
not get a platform to pursue the study institutionally.
 MODERN FOLKLORISTS

Currently most of the Oriya teachers in college and universities write on

folklore.
 Each folklorist work independently and don’t have a forum to discuss on current

theories and trends

 Most of the work is the out come of some project or UGC scheme

 Critical research on Folklore is still not taken in Orissa since it has no

independent status
 many scholars have very obscure ideas on folklore study . Out of 20 theses
about 10 theses were on find folk elements in Oriya literature- which is a
misnomer.
 The archic definition of folklore is still operation al in academic domain

 Folklore is synamic in the ppublic domain but static in academic domain


MULTIDISCIPLINE
 Anthropology
LK Mahapatra and KB dash - Folklore of Orissa
Dr Jagannath Dash- Tribal myths
 English Literature
Dr Biyotkesh Tripathy
Dr Ganeswar Mishra

Oriya Literature
Sri Dr Krishna Charan Behera,
 Dr Janaki Ballabha Mohanty
 BLURRED IDEAS
 Study of Oriya folklore was considered as a
knowledge of nonliterate by the Oriya literary
figures of the universities/colleges
 Their understanding on folklore as a discipline is
not clear and it is not connected to the people
 Thus modern Oriya literature is also not connected
to the people
 Lack of scholarship, lack of good library, and lack
of institutions to promote folklore study
 Except considering folklore as a special paper,
that to having no much reference books in
modern folklore theory and methods, the
curriculum and the prescribed books for
students reveal that how poorly we manage
folklore study. Therefore with having a lot of
folklore resources in Orissa, there is a serious
lack of folklore study
 MY OBSERVATION
 My own observation is that either it is folklore
or linguistics; it will never survive without the
help of its application in human development
domain. Community knowledge has the strength
of regenerating their own culture in new cultural
setting. Institutions ( Govt. NGO, Universities,
colleges and schools ) should use folklore as
the instrument of knowledge resource.
ROLE OF FOLKLORE IN CURRENT SOCIETY

 Folklore is enriched with human intelligence

 It has to be understood why in Indian society
it is relevant
 Folklore as a body of knowledge is important to
reduce the gap of literate and non-litearates
 Folklore has the organic potency of fight
injustice
 Folklore is instrumental to construct
culturally appropriate curriculum for school
children to University scholars ( NCF 2005)
 Community as the resource persons can
contribute to the academic domain in
reconstructing the knowledge of a given territory
 Indigenous knowledge can be regenerated for
economic productive activities ( KNC)
 MULTIVERSITY VRS UNIVERSITY
 When creator and user of folklore belong to
multiversity, folklore researchers are from
university
 University are still secluded from the
community
 There is a need to connect the multiversity with
the university
 Folklore as the marker of understanding the
time and space to understand the human history
and to shape the history for humanity
 It is a knowledge to explore the human history of
exploitation through collective expression
 Knowledge of public sphere perpetuated and
transformed cutting across time and space.
VISWA BHARATI SCHOOL
 Dr Prasanna Kumar Mishra :East Indian Myths and Legends.
 Dr Shyam Sundar Mahapatra :Oriya ballads.
 Dr Niladri Harichandan :Folk Drama of Orissa.
 Besides Dr Debi Prasanna Pattanayak ,
 Dr Brundaban Chandra Acharya,
 Dr Narendranath Mishra,
 Dr Khageswar Mahapatra ,
 Dr Gaganendra Nath Das
 Dr Kailash Patnaiik,
 DrSabita Pradhan and
 DrManoranjan Pradhan
 Dr Giribala Mohanty
MODERN FOLKLORISTS OF ORISSA
 Dr. Kumuda Ranjan Panigrahi, Dr NC Panda, Dr Prakash
Patnaik, Dr Kailash Patnaik, Dr Dr KC Pradhan ,Dr
Gauranga Charan Das, Dr Dolagovinda Bisi, Dr Anjali
Padhi , Dr Chitrasen Pasayat Dr Santosh Rath have done
commendable work on Oriya folklore. But they are not fully
dedicated to any genre of folklore analysis. New generation
folklorists like Sudhir Sahu, Prabash Sahu, Sharmila Chhotray,
Sanjaya Bag, Gopinath Bag, Sushil bag, Binapani Debta
and many scholars are engaged in folklore study in Odisha.
Some of them are trying to visualize folklore as instrumental
to social protest and analyze it as anti hegemonic discourse.
 FINALLY
 what could be the role of folklore scholars for
human development ? Do they really work with
the community ?
 Do they learn from the community ?
 Do they share with the community ?
 Do their engagement of mind help the
knowledge ?
 A lot of questions on the way of scholarship
 Thank you