Tribal versions of the epics
Topic: India, That Is Bharat: Names of India and Unity in Diversity · NCERT: Class 6, Ch 7 "India's Cultural Roots"; Class 6, Ch 8 "Unity in Diversity, or 'Many in the One'"
Meaning
Tribal versions of the epics are the Ramayana and the Mahabharata as many tribal communities tell them in their own way. They are passed down by word of mouth, not in writing. The Bhils, Gonds and Mundas keep such versions, and so do most tribes of the northeast and the Himalayan regions, including Kashmir. In their legends, epic heroes such as the five Pandavas, Draupadi and sometimes even Duryodhana visit the tribe's own land. These versions show how the epics joined India's many communities into one shared cultural web.
Example
In a forest of the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu, the Irula tribals look after a carved-stone shrine called 'Pancha Pandavar'. It honours the Pandavas' passage through their land. The anthropologist K.S. Singh noted that there is hardly a place in India that the epic heroes did not visit, according to folklore.
Don't confuse with
- Classical regional retellings: works such as Kamban's Tamil Ramayana or Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas were written by known poets. Tribal versions are oral and belong to a whole community.