Bharthari- A Chattisgarhi Oral Epic (Indian Literature in Tribal Languages)

Indian languages carry within them a rich heritage of creativity which has been transmitted from generation to generation entirely in oral forms. Among the languages that are presently spoken in India, a relatively small number of languages have been put down in scripts. As against these scripted languages, for which a special schedule is devoted in India's Constitution, there are those other languages which are living and used in daily life but not codified in systems of orthographic representation. Most of these other languages are spoken by India's vast and varied tribal population, spread over nearly eighteen states. In order to document and preserve the rich tradition of oral literature in the tribal languages, Sahitya Akademi has established the Tribal Literature and Oral Tradition Project. Under this project a series of bilingual literary texts is being published. So far the volumes in Bhilli, Dehwali, Garhwali, Varli, Kunkna, etc. have been published, and other volumes in Mizo, Garo, Khasi, Bodo, Santhali, etc. will shortly be published. The present volume, Bharthari, which brings together the Chhattisgarhi version of a heroic-spiritual legend and its simple English rendering, is a result of painstaking documentation and research by Dr. Nandkishore Tiwari. A version of this saga with its Hindi translation was brought out earlier (1994) by the Madhya Pradesh Adivasi Loka-Kala Parishad. The English translation in this volume is mainly by Dr. H. U. Khan and is reworked by Dr. Arvind Macwan.