Indian Folklore

Indian Folklore

The folklore of India compasses the folklore of the nation of India and the Indian subcontinent.

The subcontinent of India contains a wide diversity of ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups. Given this diversity, it is difficult to generalize widely about the folklore of India as a unit.

Hinduism, the religion of the majority of the citizens of India, is a heterogeneous faith whose local manifestations are diverse. Folk religion in Hinduism may explain the rationale behind local religious practices, and contain local myths that explain the existence of local religious customs or the location of temples. These sorts of local variation have a higher status in Hinduism than comparable customs would have in religions such as Christianity or Islam. Some have claimed that the very concept of a "folklore of India" represents a colonial imposition that disparages the Hindu religion. However, folklore as currently understood goes beyond religious or supernatural beliefs and practices, and compasses the entire body of social tradition whose chief vehicle of transmission is oral or outside institutional channels.

Read more about Indian Folklore:  Folk Art of India, Indian Folk Heroes, Villains, and Tricksters, Cultural Archetypes and Icons, Traditional Games of India, Indian Folklorists

Famous quotes containing the words indian and/or folklore:

    “We crossed a deep and wide bay which makes eastward north of Kineo, leaving an island on our left, and keeping to the eastern side of the lake. This way or that led to some Tomhegan or Socatarian stream, up which the Indian had hunted, and whither I longed to go. The last name, however, had a bogus sound, too much like sectarian for me, as if a missionary had tampered with it; but I knew that the Indians were very liberal. I think I should have inclined to the Tomhegan first.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “So, too, if, to our surprise, we should meet one of these morons whose remarks are so conspicuous a part of the folklore of the world of the radio—remarks made without using either the tongue or the brain, spouted much like the spoutings of small whales—we should recognize him as below the level of nature but not as below the level of the imagination.”
    —Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)