Folktales of India

Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (1882) is a collection of poems by Toru Dutt. Compiled after her death and published in London, Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan is an invaluable work of art from a pioneering figure in Indian history and Bengali literature. Born in Calcutta to a family of Bengali Christians, Toru Dutt was raised at the crossroads of English and Indian cultures. In addition to her native Bengali, she became fluent in English, French, and Sanskrit as a young girl, eventually writing novels and poems in each language. Despite her limited body of work, Dutt’s legacy as a groundbreaking writer remains firm in India and around the world. “Savitri was the only child / Of Madra's wise and mighty king; / Stern warriors, when they saw her, smiled, / As mountains smile to see the spring.” In rhyming English verse, Bengali poet Toru Dutt presents some of the oldest and most sacred stories from ancient India. Translated from Sanskrit into the popular ballad form, Dutt introduces an English audience to the story of Savitri, originally from the epic Mahabharata, as well as the tale of Lakshman, which comes from the Hindu epic Ramayana. Alongside these poems appear Dutt’s versions of Bengali folklore—“Joghadhya Uma”—and poems written during her stay in Europe. “Near Hastings” is a particularly beautiful example of her original verse depicting an otherworldly encounter along the English seacoast: “Near Hastings, on the shingle-beach, / We loitered at the time / When ripens on the wall the peach, / The autumn's lovely prime.” With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Toru Dutt’s Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan is a classic work of Bengali literature reimagined for modern readers.

India is a treasure-trove of folktales born out of the customs and traditions of the country. Sometimes these tales are retold in its different regions, while imparting the local flavour to them. The mobility of the folktales can be attributed to the pilgrims and travellers journeying from one part of the country to another. They rested at night in dharamsalas or inns, often attached to temples, where they mingled among themselves and with the local people. More often than not, folktales are passed on from grandmother to grandchildren so vividly that they are impressed in the listener's memory forever. They are delightful and fascinating to the young as well as the old. The same story even when heard repeatedly does not lose its interest as it appeals to the fantasies, the make-beliefs and the primitiveness in us. These beautiful folktales of India were on the verge of extinction when a project of compilation of 21 volumes consisting of folktales of different regions was launched by Sterling. These folktales have been gleaned from the larger collection.

Folklore pervades childhoods, families and communities and is the language of the illiterate. Even in large, modern cities, folklore-proverbs, lullabies, folk medicine, folktales-is only a suburb away, a cousin or a grandmother away. Wherever people live, folklore grows. India is a country of many languages, religions, sects and cultures. It is a land of many myths and countless stories. Translated from twenty-two Indian languages, these one hundred and ten tales cover most of the regions of India and represent favorite's narratives from the subcontinent. A.K. Ramanujan's outstanding selection is an indispensable guide to the richness and vitality of India's ageless oral folklore tradition.

The first single volume collection of classic Hindi folktales by translators William Crooke and Pandit Ram Gharib Chaube. In 1891, at a time when the study of India was primarily based on ancient texts, coins, and material remains, William Crooke dared to focus on living India—its everyday culture, age-old customs, and fictional narratives. With Pandit Ram Gharib Chaube, he recorded and published, over a period of six years, a remarkable collection of folktales from northern India. The tales reflect the tapestry of social and personal lives of this region, the epicenter of a revolt against British rule in 1857. Although many of the tales were published in British ethnographic journals, a number of the manuscripts, in Chaube's handwriting, were unpublished; others existed only as old microfilm in a New Delhi library. Never before have they appeared as a single volume or been available in any one library or archive.

There are human skulls speaking to men. There are demonesses falling in love with their prey. There is a jackal pretending to be a priest and a donkey that goes beyond his duty. These are stories from the soil of Bihar, from the land of Bhojpuri and Maithili-stories that have traversed centuries and created a catalogue of oral wisdom.