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<p>This volume contains fifteen articles by eminent Indian and European scholars describing and analyzing various aspects of folk culture in South Asia. The principal emphasis is on folk religion including both ritual performances and oral texts. The articles cover a wide spectrum of regional traditions ranging from Kerala and Karnataka in the southwest to Nepal and the Himalayas in the northeast and a stunning variety of materials including ball games oral poetry a ritual hunt ghost and deity possession and the traditions of itinerant genealogists. Several major themes typical of Indian folk religion bind the different articles together. Among these themes are references to a royal and martial paradigm for understanding divinity and an emphasis on the god’s immediate presence in possession and in ritual. Papers included are – Part I: King Kha]n]doba’s hunt and his encounter with Banai the shepherdess; Ritual rivalry in Kerala; performing possession: ritual and con-sciousness in the Teyyam complex of Northern Kerala; Tai Paradevata; a goddess and her ritual impersonation in the Teyyam tradition of Kerala; Siva under refuse: the hidden Mahadeva and protective stones in Nepal: On Himalayan ball games head-hunting and related matters; God ghosts and demons: possession in South Asia; Part II: The genres of Tu_lu folk-poetry: an introduction; Kannalaye: the place of a Tu_lu pa]ddana among interrelated oral traditions; Text variability and authenticity in the Siri cut; Avatara avenger and king; narrative themes in the Rajasthani oral epic of Devnaraya]n; The episode of the golden Siva image in the Baga_ravat; Itinerant Vai]s]navite genealogists of the Ganges basin; Nasiruddin and Adinath Nizamuddin and Kaniphnath; Hindu-Muslim religious syncretism in the folk literature of the Deccan; The king and the tribal bard: patterns of protest by two minorities.</p>
