Saturday, March 20, 2010

Aspects of Indian storytelling traditions


India has a long history and culture of storytelling. All over India, varied storytelling traditions and styles existed in different languages. Following are some aspects of Indian storytelling traditions.
- Indian storytelling traditions have a symbiotic relationship with the philosophical, sculptural, music, dance and literature traditions of the regions they originate from.
- The form and content of most Indian performing art traditions reflect the beliefs and philosophical and spiritual beliefs of their performers.
- Storytelling has served a social purpose, acting as a medium wherein various difficult social issues such AIDS, dowry etc are presented; hence storytelling almost always reflects social reality and often seeks to improve it.
- Ethics play an important role in storytelling traditions. The purpose of storytelling is often to expound on morality or dharma, to help audiences distinguish between righteous and unrighteous action.
- Storytelling played an important role in education and it was used both to explain abstract philosophical concepts as well as very practical statecraft, administrative and political science or Raja Niti.
- Stories are often extracted from mythologies, folktales, vedic legends and puranic legends, as well as from the two epics or Itihasas – the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

Writer:
Swetha Prakash

References:
The illustrated cultural history of India – AL Basham , Oxford University Press, 2007

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