ENGLISH

Folklore, Religion and the Songs of a Bengali Madman: A Journey between Performance and the Politics of Cultural Representation

By Carola Erika Lorea

Book information

Publisher
Brill Academic Publishers
Year
2016
ISBN
9004324704, 9789004324701
ISSN
1570-078x
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
8 MB (8496498 bytes)
Series
Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture 22
Pages
xvi+334\351
Orientation
yes
Paginated
yes
Scanned
portrait
Time added
2016-09-15 11:02:33
Practices & Sacred Texts;Religious Art;Religious SReligion & Spirituality;Agnosticism;Atheism;Buddhi

Description

This book explores historical and cultural aspects of modern and contemporary Bengal through the performance-centred study of a particular repertoire: the songs of the saint-composer Bhaba Pagla (1902-1984), who is particularly revered among Baul and Fakir singers. The author shows how songs, if examined as 'sacred scriptures', represent multi-dimensional texts for the study of South Asian religions. Revealing how previous studies about Bauls mirror the history of folkloristics in Bengal, this book presents sacred songs as a precious symbolic capital for a marginalized community of dislocated and unorthodox Hindus, who consider the practice of singing in itself an integral part of the path towards self-realization.

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