Nectar Gaze and Poison Breath: An Analysis and Translation of the Rajasthani Oral Narrative of Devn-ar-aya?

by Aditya Malik

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195150193
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/24/2005
Series:	South Asia Research
Pages:	576
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 6.00(h) x 1.44(d)

About the Author

Aditya Malik is Senior Lecturer and Programme Director of Religious Studies at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

Editorial Reviews

"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 the text with deep insight, drawing out its implications for our understanding of fundamental problems in North Indian historiography, Rajasthani cult and ritual, and the study of living bardic traditions. This is a work of exemplary scholarship."—David Shulman, Professor of Indian Studies and Comparative Literature, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

From the Publisher