Folk Literature of Bengal

Overview

This pioneering work originated from Dinesh Chandra Sen’s 1917 Ramtanu Lahiri Fellowship lectures at the University of Calcutta, representing an early systematic scholarly study of Bengali folk literature. Sen examines vernacular folk traditions from ancient times through the colonial period, covering language evolution, Islamic influences, Vedic text incorporation into folk traditions, and the collection of oral ballads including the Mymensingh Gitika. The volume preserves folk materials that were disappearing in early 20th-century Bengal due to urbanization and changing cultural practices.

About Dinesh Chandra Sen

Dinesh Chandra Sen (1866-1939) was a Bengali scholar, folklorist, and one of the founding faculty members of the University of Calcutta. Appointed as the first Ramtanu Lahiri Research Fellow in 1914, he dedicated his career to collecting and preserving Bengali folk traditions. His major works include “History of Bengali Language and Literature” (1911), “Chaitanya and His Age” (1922), and the compilation “Mymensingh Gitika,” which preserved ancient Bengali folk ballads. Sen’s work established methodologies for folklore collection and analysis that influenced subsequent generations of South Asian folklorists.

Historical Context

Published in 1920, this work emerged during the Bengal Renaissance when scholars were re-examining regional cultural traditions. Sen’s research responded to the rapid social changes of early 20th-century Bengal, where industrialization, urbanization, and colonial education were transforming traditional culture. The Ramtanu Lahiri Fellowship, established to support research in Bengali language and literature, provided Sen the resources to undertake extensive fieldwork collecting oral traditions that were being displaced by modernity.

Content and Methodology

The work examines multiple dimensions of Bengali folk literature:

• Origins and evolution of Bengali folk language and literary forms
• Islamic influences on Bengali folklore after the 13th century
• Integration of Vedic and Puranic elements into folk narratives
• Structure and themes of oral ballads, particularly the Mymensingh Gitika
• Performance contexts and transmission of folk traditions
• Relationship between elite literary traditions and folk culture

Sen employed both textual analysis and fieldwork, collecting oral traditions from rural Bengal and analyzing their linguistic, thematic, and cultural characteristics. His approach combined philological rigor with ethnographic sensitivity.

Scholarly Significance

This 413-page volume represented pioneering work in several respects:

• Systematic documentation of Bengali folk traditions before their potential disappearance
• Academic validation of folk literature as worthy of serious scholarly study
• Demonstration of sophisticated literary techniques in oral traditions
• Evidence of cultural synthesis between Hindu, Islamic, and indigenous Bengali traditions

Sen’s work challenged colonial-era hierarchies that dismissed vernacular and oral traditions as inferior to Sanskrit and English literature. His documentation of the Mymensingh Gitika, in particular, revealed complex narrative structures and poetic sophistication in folk ballads.

Legacy and Influence

The work influenced subsequent folklore studies in Bengal and South Asia more broadly. Sen’s students and successors, including scholars like Sukumar Sen and Ashutosh Bhattacharya, built upon his methodologies. The book’s preservation of folk materials provided primary sources for later linguistic and anthropological research. Contemporary scholars continue to reference Sen’s work when studying Bengali cultural history and the relationship between folk and elite literary traditions.

Digital Preservation

Originally published by the University of Calcutta in 1920, this work has been digitized from Hooghly Mohsin College through the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAK), Kolkata, and is freely accessible through the Digital Library of India. The preservation ensures continued access to Sen’s documentation of Bengali folk traditions for contemporary research and cultural heritage preservation.