Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T23:34:00.547Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Rathore Rajput Hero of Rajasthan: Some Reflections on John Smith's

The Epic of Pabuji

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Vinay Kumar Srivastava
Vinay Kumar Srivastava
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Few books are exemplars of real hard work sustained over a lengthy period of time as is John Smith's The Epic of Pabuji(1991). Starting his investigation of the scroll of cloth painting in 1973, a huge structure measuring fifteen feet by four, locally termed par, before which this epic is sung by a special caste of people, lower in hierarchy, called Naik Bhopa, Smith in a span of eighteen years has accomplished a work of lasting stay in the ethnographic tradition of south Asia as well as the discipline of folklore in general. Before this book was published, he had also contributed some important papers (in 1986 and 1989) on Pabu-ji. As far as I know, it is rare that Sanskritists, which Smith is at Cambridge, pay attention to ‘popular (or “non-Sanskritic”) traditions’ of people, and if at all they do, introducing the anthropological method of fieldwork in their study, their works are still laden with Indological references and scholarship where the actual voice of people is lost in oblivion or relegated to the back seat. But it does not happen with Smith; he is not only committed to listening to people's voice in its own right and place, but also provides a fair, up to date, and scholarly account of Pabu-ji's story and its role and niche in the local culture of Rajasthan. Therefore, his work is also of considerable interest to anthropologists, especially those working on the sociology of cult, popular religion, and non- literate traditions and their meanings.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , July 1994 , pp. 589 - 614
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Binford, Mira Reym. 1976. Mixing in the colour of Ram of Ranuja, a folk pilgrimage to the grave of a Rajput hero-saint. In Smith, Bardwell L. (ed.) Hinduism: New Essays in the History of Religion. Leiden: E. J. Brill (pp. 120–42).Google Scholar
Coccari, Diane M. 1989. Protection and identity: Banaras's Bir Babas as neighbouring guardian deities. In Freitag, Sandria B. (ed.) Culture and Power in Banaras: Community, Performance, and Environment 1800–1980. Berkeley: University of California Press (pp. 130–46).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohn, Bernard S. 1987. An Anthropologist among the Historians and other Essays. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fuller, C. J. 1992. The Camphor Flame. Popular Hinduism and Society in India. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Harlan, Lindsey. 1992. Religion and Rajput Women. The Ethical Protection in Contemporary Narratives. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Köhler-Rollefson, Ilse. 1992. The Raika dromedary breeders of Rajasthan: a pastoral system in crisis. Nomadic Peoples 30: 74–83.Google Scholar
Kothari, Komal. 1982. The shrine: an expression of social needs. In Gods of the Byways: Wayside Shrines of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat. Oxford: Museum of Modern Art (pp. 1–31).Google Scholar
Marriott, McKim. 1976. Hindu transactions: diversity without dualism. In Kapferer, Bruce (ed.) Transaction and Meaning. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues (pp. 109–42).Google Scholar
Mathur, K. S. 1961. The meaning of Hinduism in rural Malwa. In Vidyarthi, L. P. (ed.) Aspects of Religion in Indian Society. Meerut: Kedarnath Ramnath (pp. 114–25).Google Scholar
Powlett, P. W. 1874. Gazetteer of the Bikaner State. Bikaner: Government Press.Google Scholar
Sharma, G. N. 1970. Rajasthan Studies. Agra: Lakshmi Narain Agarwal Educational Publications.Google Scholar
Singer, Milton. 1972. When a Great Tradition Modernizes. London: Pall Mall.Google Scholar
Smith, John D. 1986. Where the plot thickens, epic moments in Pabu-ji. South Asian Studies 2: 53–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, John D. 1989. Scapegoats of the gods: the ideology of the Indian epics. In Blackburn, Stuart H., Claus, Peter J., Flueckiger, Joyce B. and Wadley, Susan S. (eds) Oral Epics in India. Berkeley: University of California Press (pp. 176–94).Google Scholar
Smith, John D. 1991. The Epic of Pabuji: A Study, Transcription and Translation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sontheimer, Gunther-Dietz. 1989. Pastoral Deities in Western India. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Srivastava, V. K. 1989. Raika jati ka vikas: kuch vicar (‘Development of the Raika caste: some thoughts’) (in Hindi). Originally published in an undated issue of Raika Jagriti (the caste periodical of the Raikas). Reprinted in Manav 17 (3): 107–10.Google Scholar
Srivastava, V. K. 1991. Who are the Raikas/Rabaris? Man in India 71 (1): 279–304.Google Scholar
Srivastava, V. K. n.d. On religion and renunciation: the case of the Raikas of western Rajasthan.Google Scholar
Thapar, Romila. 1982. The householder and the renouncer in the Brahmanical and Buddhist traditions. In Madan, T. N. (ed.) Way of Life: King, Householder, Renouncer. New Delhi: Vikas (pp. 273–98).Google Scholar
Westphal-Hellbusch, Sigrid. 1975. Changes in meaning of ethnic names as exemplified by the Jat, Rabari, Bharwad, and Charan in northwestern India. In Leshnik, L. S. and Sontheimer, G.-D. (eds) Pastoralists and Nomads in South Asia. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz (pp. 117–38).Google Scholar