商品簡介
Pastoralist traditions have long been extraordinarily important to the social, economic, political, and cultural life of the
region of western India called Maharashtra. The Marathi-language oral literature of the Dhangar shepherds of
Maharashtra is not only one of the most important elements of their own traditional cultural life, but also a treasure of
world literature. This volume presents two lively and well-crafted examples of the ovi, a genre typical of the oral literature of Dhangars. The two ovis in the volume narrate the stories of Biroba and Dhuloba, two of the most important gods of Dhangar shepherds. Each of the ovis tells an elaborate story of the birth of the god--a miraculous and complicated process in both cases--and of the struggles each one goes through in order to find and win his bride. The extensive introduction provides a literary analysis of the ovis and discusses what they reveal about the cosmology, geography, society, administrative structures, and economy of their performers' world, and about the performers views of pastoralistsand women.
作者簡介
Anne Feldhaus is a Distinguished Foundation Professor of Religious Studies at Arizona State University. She is the author of Water and Womanhood: Religious Meanings of Rivers in Maharashtra and Connected Places: Region, Pilgrimage, and Geographical Imagination in India, as well as several other books on religious traditions of Maharashtra. She is fluent in Marathi and has lived in India for several long periods of her life.
