I have felt an attraction for the Bengali folk literature from my very boyhood days. It is a perenial source of joy. Inspite of the pangs of poverty and hunger Bengal sings and spins yarns. Even fifty years ago Kabiwallas (verse-makers), masked daacers and folk musicians showed their performances at village fails. In my hoyhood I saw these performances with rapt attention. The juvenile enchantment turned into enquiring zeal in my youth. My guide in the twilight paths of folk culture was the respected scholar Dr. Hiranmoy Banerjee, Ex-Vice-Chancellor, Rabindra Bharati University.
In the meantime I had an opportunity to come into contact with a few folk-singers from a foreign land. Their songs attracted me very much and induced me to study them in comparison with our own songs.
The existing works on Bengali folk literature do not make any comparative study. It was Dr. Hiranmoy Banerjee who gave me the framework for a book on such a comparative study. The suggestion inspired me to take up this work which comprises a study of the folk literature of Russia and Africa vis-a-vis the Bengali folk literature.
The comparative study reveals the essential difference distinguishing the three folk literatures. Folk tales of Russia are not as full of emotion and imagination as those of Bengal.
Culture has been defined in many ways. It is not clear whether a universally acceptable definition has taken shape. Questions like- What is culture? What is the content of culture? do not evoke precise answers yet. However, in the conference of the Indian Congress for Cultural Freedom held in Bombay in 1951, the following definition was given:-
"Culture has both an individual and social context. Individual culture is an attitude of life on the part of a human being who seeks awareness of himself and of the world. Social culture results from the integration of the culture of the members of a community and of the social relationship emerging in the geographical environment and historical tradition which define the community. Neither individual nor social culture can be complete unless it rests on the under-lying unity of the mankind" (Quotation used in India's culture through the ages by Mohan Lal Vidyarthi). From the quotation it appears that there are three aspects of culture-Individual, Universal and National. Culture helps to develop individual personality.
Malinowski says culture "comprises inherited artifices, goods, technical processes, ideas, habits and values". Culture is realistic and is based on intellectual knowledge; not only does culture depend on environment, social condition but also moral values, and spiritual and cultural appreciation. Thus, we can very well understand that culture has one universal appeal which embraces the different aspects of human life "beginning from philosophy and religion and ending with social institutions".
Whatever may be the general meaning of culture and its content, we can analyse and extract a definite meaning only against the back- ground of social condition. It is confusing to find the word 'culture' being classified as Western and Eastern. When we speak of Indian culture or European culture, we naturally get a pattern of the word culture. The basic idea of Indian culture is spirituality-its fulfilment is in renunciation. If someone claims that the basic idea of Indian culture is unity, I will not disagree. But one should remember that unity is established in the human personality only out of a sense of universal feeling, when renunciation is firmly achieved.
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