The book pursues an ethnographic and a theoretical purpose. The ethnographic first part examines how Tamil folktales, mostly gathered and published by Tamil authors, reflect Tamil culture. However, since the narrators want to amuse their listeners and arouse their interest they tend to exaggerate or invert the normal situation. Therefore, their tales reflect more reliably Tamil values, beliefs and interest than social behaviour. The second theoretical part stresses the importance of the actually occuring motifs and casts doubt on typology. Rather than artificially distinguishing tale types, often thought to exist independent of the narrators, it points out a network of thematic connections among Tamil folktales.

This book deals with roots of Indian geographical thoughts with reference to its historical base, cultural context and visionary message. As a consequence of long cultural history the resultant lifeworld in India converges like a drama and dance of space-time function with transference and transformation. In the passage of time emerged a metaphysical frame of thought, the varieties of heritagescapes, and simultaneously grown the senses to heritage ecology. Of course, attempts have been scanty but the richness always portrayed in literature and literary geography. Historical and cultural geographies in India have not caught that much attention in the academia; however on micro-level distinct attributes are interpreted in the recent literature. Going back to the ancient notions of nature theology, religioscapes and rituals have developed a complex network of belief systems in the Hindu traditions. In these traditions the motherly river Ganga serves as symbol, system and metaphor in the Indian culture. Continuity of cultural manifestations is actively maintained and continued in the Indian villages, where lives three-fourths of India’s population, and serve like a ‘place ballet’. India’s catastrophic march on the road of development and technology is entangled with obstacles and socio-spatial gaps that need to be re-considered in the light of cultural background and historical legacy. All these issues are examined, emphasising dualistic and complimentary perspectives in the West and the East. Contents: Viewpoints on the book: v-viii; List of Tables, List of Figures: xi-xvi; Foreword: Prof. Martin J. Haigh (Oxford Brooke University, UK): 1-8; Preface, Acknowledgements: 9-21, 1. Metaphysics and Sacred Ecology: Cosmos, Theos, Anthropos: 23-57, 2. Lifeworld, Lifecycle and Home: 58-97, 3. Landscape as Text: Literary Geography and Indian Context: 98-128, 4. Historical Geography of India: Trends in the 21st century: 129-162, 5. Cultural Geography of India: Trends in the 21st century: 163-195, 6. Geographic Milieu and Belief Systems: An Appraisal: 196-226, 7. Sacred space and Faithscape: 227-266, 8. The Ganga River: Images and Symbol of India: 267-302, 9. Indian Village: A Phenomenological Understanding: 303-350, 10. Heritagescapes of India: Appraising Heritage ecology: 351-393, and 11. Development in India: Appraising Self Retrospection: 394-422; index: 423-430; author 431.

Scholars of popular Hindu religion in India have always been fascinated by oral texts and rituals, but surprisingly only few attempts have as yet been made to analyse the relationship between rituals and texts systematically. This book contributes to the filling of this gap. Focusing on the dynamics of a local (non-Brahmanical) ritual, its modular organisation and inner logic, the interaction between narrative text and ritual, and the significance of the local versus translocal nature of the text in the ritual context, the study provides a broad range of issues for comparison. It demonstrates that examining texts in their context helps to understand better the complexity of religious traditions and the way in which ritual and text are programmatically employed. The author offers a vivid description of a hitherto unnoticed ritual system, along with the first translation of a text called the Icakkiyamman-Katai (IK). Composed in the Tamil language, the IK represents a substantially longer and embellished form of a core versio which probably goes as far back as the seventh century C.E. Unlike the classical source, this text has been incorporated into a living tradition, and is being constantly refashioned. A range of text versions have been encapsulated in the form of a conspectus, which will shed light on the text's variability or fixity and will add to our knowledge of bardic creativity. Includes a film by the author on DVD.

Contributed papers, mostly on Tamil language and literature.

This book expounds in a colourful way the diverse literaryimages that Banaras, the city known as the Cultural Capital ofIndia and the holiest city for Hindus, has inspired and continuesto inspire in different writers in the course of history. Fewother cities in the world have so sparked the imagination ofthe artists as this paradoxical and undescribable city whichseems to integrate all contradictions.Kabir, Tulasi Das, Mirza Ghalib, Bhartendu Harishchandra,Rudra Kashikeya, Bishma Sahni, Raja Rao, Shivprasad Singh,Abdul Bismillah, Kashinath Singh and Pankhaj Mishra, allwrote about the Banaras of their time or of the past. Rana P.B.Singh, an undisputed authority on the city of Banaras, analysestheir literary images and the cultural traditions describedtherein, interpreting them in the purview of cultural symbolsand lived traditions which have maintained their continuitysince the ancient past.