The author charts the rise of Bauls to their present iconic status as minstrels and mystics.

Noted for their haunting melodies and enigmatic lyrics, Bauls have been portrayed as spiritually enlightened troubadours traveling around the countryside in West Bengal in India and in Bangladesh. As emblems of Bengali culture, Bauls have long been a subject of scholarly debates which center on their esoteric practices, and middle class imaginaries of the category Baul. Adding to this literature, the intimate ethnography presented in this book recounts the life stories of members from a single family, shining light on their past and present tribulations bound up with being poor and of a lowly caste. It shows that taking up the Baul path is a means of softening the stigma of their lower caste identity in that religious practice, where women play a key role, renders the body pure. The path is also a source of monetary income in that begging is considered part of their vocation. For women, the Baul path has the added implication of lessening constraints of gender. While the book describes a family of singers, it also portrays the wider society in which they live, showing how their lives connect and interlace with other villagers, a theme not previously explored in literature on Bauls. A novel approach to the study of women, the body and religion, this book will be of interest to undergraduates and graduates in the field of the anthropology. In addition, it will appeal to students of everyday religious lives as experienced by the poor, through case studies in South Asia. The book provides further evidence that renunciation in South Asia is not a uniform path, despite claims to the contrary. There is also a special interest in Bauls among those familiar with the Bengali speaking region. While this book speaks to that interest, its wider appeal lies in the light it sheds on religion, the body, life histories, and poverty.

In this multi-sited ethnographic study, Knight explores the everyday lives of women of the Baul tradition of musical mystics in India and Bangladesh. She demonstrates that Baul women construct a meaningful life as they navigate between conflicting expectations of Bauls to be carefree and of women to be modest.

This book explores historical and cultural aspects of modern and contemporary Bengal through the performance-centred study of a particular repertoire: the songs of the saint-composer Bhaba Pagla (1902-1984), who is particularly revered among Baul and Fakir singers. The author shows how songs, if examined as 'sacred scriptures', represent multi-dimensional texts for the study of South Asian religions. Revealing how previous studies about Bauls mirror the history of folkloristics in Bengal, this book presents sacred songs as a precious symbolic capital for a marginalized community of dislocated and unorthodox Hindus, who consider the practice of singing in itself an integral part of the path towards self-realization.

Throughout their 600-year history the Bauls of Bengal, India have kept no official scriptures. Their esoteric spiritual teachings on the use of breath, sex and devotion are encoded in the words of their songs/poems. This is a translation of 204 songs, including an extensive introduction to the history and faith of the Bauls, and the composition of their music. Includes a CD of authentic Baul artists, recorded over the last forty years -- an exquisite presentation of a rarely documented genre.

Freewheeling Mimlu Sen lives in Paris, where one day she witnesses an electrifying performance by three Bauls, mystic minstrels from Bengal, who spin like pillars of dust. Their music inspires her to return to Calcutta, and to go on an extraordinary journey with one of them, Paban Das Baul, from her respectable home in the city to his humble village, and further on, into the verdant Bengali countryside that is their common heritage. Paban takes Mimlu through the itinerant Baul’s route—from the festival at Kenduli with its marathon performances, to tranquil Shantiniketan, where Bauls frequently stop en route and disrupt quotidian life; Agrodwip, deep in the Vaishnava world, to Nabasana, where mesmerizing guru Hari Goshain presides over Baul games and ultimately, her initiation; and to Boral, where she holds her own big Baul festival, a mahatsava. Along the way, she encounters tantrics and tribals, exorcisms and witch sightings, catfish that climb trees and esoteric sexo-yogic secrets—and she falls in love. Baulsphere takes you into the heart of rural Bengal, and into the fascinating world of the Bauls. Passionate, enthralling and searingly lyrical, it is a stunning book.

A Buddhist monk takes up arms to resist the Chinese invasion of Tibet - then spends the rest of his life trying to atone for the violence by hand printing the best prayer flags in India. A Jain nun tests her powers of detachment as she watches her best friend ritually starve herself to death. Nine people, nine lives; each one taking a different religious path, each one an unforgettable story. William Dalrymple delves deep into the heart of a nation torn between the relentless onslaught of modernity and the ancient traditions that endure to this day. LONGLISTED FOR THE BBC SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE