Department of Vocal Music, Faculty of Performing Arts, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221 005
Online published on 14 November, 2017.
Human experience of various kinds from pre historic times has flown into and crystallized as a folklore. Traditional wisdom is orally transmitted in this form. It is flexible enough to accommodate changes in time and space and assumes different shapes and functions at several levels. The folklore is classified into four main categories-(1) Oral literature, (2) Performing folk arts, (3) Folk ways of social nature and (4) Physical objects of a special kind. From generation to generation, it is sustained in memory through oral transmission and imitation. In the oral traditions narratives poems, songs, proverbs and riddles are included. The performing arts, feature plays, puppetry, folk dances, circus and similar modes of entertainment. Religious rites, marriage customs, culinary habits and medicinal lore are part of social traditions of folklore. Traditional artifacts, tools, weapons, costumes and ornaments come under the purview of physical folklore.
