Folk Culture of Nepal: An Analytical Study

Description

Folk Culture of Nepal is a significant treatise for anthropologists and scholars interested in Nepal’s rich and diverse cultural heritage. It’s is an engrossing analysis of the creative life of the Nepalese masses. Considering the analysis of oral traditions as the beginning point of any study of Nepalese culture, Rakesh presents a varied and vivid account of the Nepalese myths legends, fairy tales, traditional games, riddles, proverbs and folk arts and crafts. The book lays specific emphasis on the mechanism of the Gurungs’ Rodigarh, the diversity of Maithili culture and the fundamental network of the Tharu’s cultural charisma. It includes introductory information on legendary city Janakpur, cultural events and features like Jhumar, Bhagat Nach, Jat-Jatin, Maithil Folk Art and Alpana in Maithili Culture.

Folk Culture of Nepal, the first attempt of its kind, is a native, first-hand inquiry into the poetry of average Nepalese mind.

Folk Culture of Nepal the author, Dr Ram Dayal Rakesh, explores the cultures of both the Hill areas and the Plains of Nepal with his keen and penetrating insight. Though Dr Rakesh has literature as his principal educational background, he has also been engaged in the study of popular and folk culture. As a result of this, we find a combination of literary talent and cultural concern in his writings. —Hiroshi Ishii in Foreword

Born at Janakpur in 1942, Ram Dayal Rakesh was educated mainly at Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu from where in 1965 he received his Master’s degree and later in 1975 the University of Delhi awarded him a PhD for his pioneering research on the comparative study of contemporary Hindi and Nepali poetry. Since then Rakesh has written extensively on Nepalese art and culture.  A widely travelled writer, and a former member of the Royal Nepalese Academy, he has published his original works as well as the translations of Hindi and Japanese poetry in distinguished magazines at home and abroad.  Rakesh lives in Kathmandu