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often taken for granted.

Let us congratulate the scholarly team for their excellent work.

R E F E R E N C E S C I T E D  

B l a c k b u r n  ,  S t u a r t H .

1988 Singin g o f birth and death: Texts in performance.  Philadelphia: University of

Pennsy lvania Press.

B  l a c k b u r n  ,  Stuart H . , P eter J. C   l a u s ,  Joyce S. F  l u e c k ig e r   and Susan  W  a d l e y  ,  eds.

1989 Oral epics in India.  Berkeley: Univers ity of Califor nia Press.

C l a u s ,  Peter J.

1978 Heroes a nd heroines in the conceptual framewor k of T ulu culture.  Journal o f  

 Indian Fol\loris tics  1(2 ): 27—42.

1991 K in songs. In Gender, genre and power in South Asian expressive traditions,  eds. A.

 A ppadur ai, F. J. K or om and M. Mi lls , 136—77. Delh i: M. Ba nar s idas s.

H e d a Ja s o n  

Jerusalem

RAMANUJAN, A. K.  A Flowering Tree and Other Oral Tales from India. 

Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1997. xv + 270 pages. Glossary, 

bibliography, list o f tellers and collectors, list o f tales. C loth US$48 .00; 

ISB N 0-520-20398-4. Paper US$17.95; ISB N 0-520-20399-2.

T his book, published posthumously and edited by Stuart Blac kburn and A lan D undes , is a

collection of K ann ada folktales, collected by A. K . Ra man ujan and some other scholars from

both published and oral sources. K anna da is one o f the four major Dr av idian languages spo

ken in Karnataka in South India. During the past two decades folktales from Karnataka havebeen extensively collected and published in the Ka nnad a languag e. T here are very few col

lections, if any, in E nglis h. R am an ujan ’s nice collection is, therefore, timely and w elcome.

 A lt ho ug h some o f the tales in the pre se nt w or k have par alle ls in ot her In di a n lang uag es

and even other countries , all o f the seventy- seven tales listed in this wor k have been collected

in K arnatak a. T herefore, the title of the book is somewhat o f a 'misnomer because it includes

no tales from any other region of India. T he tales in this book were mainly collected in nort h

ern and s outhern parts of Kar natak a fr om K anna da sources, either directly collected from

K anna da s peaking narrators or from already published texts. No folktales from other com

munities w ho speak Ko nka ni, T ulu, Kodag u etc. are included. So strictly speaking, this vol

ume is neither a representative collection of folktales of India, nor of Ka rnatak a. B ut it still is

a good colle ction o f folktales.

Most o f the tales Ram anuja n did not collect himsel f but took from earlier published

 wor ks on K a nn a da folktales in the K a nn a da la ng uag e. However , he seems to hav e tr ans late d

all these into English himself. Being a skilled translator, he has excelled in this task. Some of

the published works he used are as follows: J. S. Paramasiviah,  Da^shina Karna taka Janapada 

Kathegalu  (Folktales of South K arnataka; 1977), Simpi Ning anna , Uttara Karnataka 

 Janapada Kathegalu  (Folktales of Northern K arnataka; 1988)，H. J . Lakkappa Gowda,

 Janapada Katha va li  (Folk Narrative; 1971), Ragau, Karnataka Janapada Kathegalu  (Folktales

of Karnataka; 1969)，Dhavalasri, Janapada Katham sta   (Folk Narrative; 1968)，Dr. Lingavva,

Padinelalu  (S hadow ; 1971). Interestingly , some o f the tales included in this vo lume have also

appeared in an earlier collection o f the author— namely, the Folktales fro m India  (New York:

Pantheon, 1991).

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T he arrang ement o f these folktales is not guided by any definite scheme of classifica

tion. Maybe Ramanujan intended to classify these tales according to themes or some other

means, but the editors preferre d to leave them as they were arr anged by the collector. T ha tRa ma nuja n had some kind o f classification in min d is evidenced by his choice o f opening this

collection with the interesting tale “A Story a nd a Song ”一a story about why stories should

be told.1 his way Ramanujan achieves two objectives besides presenting an interesting folk

tale: he e mphasizes the importance of storytelling a nd also makes his point about the role

meta-folklore plays in storytelling. Nar ration of folktales, besides prov iding enter tainment, is

a need g uided by the contex t, the purpose, and the message it communicate s. I n the absence

of a purpose a nd message, tale narr ation becomes a mec hanical a nd waste ful exercise. T his is

the message of the last tale, “A Story to En d all Stories” (AT 2301 A ), wit h which R am anuj an

chose to conclude this volume.

 A t the en d, a par ti al “L is t o f T ellers an d Co llec to rs ” is giv en , w hich inc ludes for at lea st

some tales the sex, age, and caste of the narrator s, the reg ion where a tale was f ound, a nd the

 year it was col lected. A lar ge numbe r o f tales hav e bee n left out o f this sc heme . T here are,however, some tales which are shown as collected by “A K R” (i.e., A. K. R am anuja n) w ith or

 w it ho ut a que s ti on ma r k (? ). T his questi on ma r k no t on ly indic at es unc ert ai nty bu t als o cre

ates it when information is presented in the following manner:

“A K R: K ambar MS ” or “A K R (?) Kurbeti i MS ”

T his k ind o f information is very confusing. One wonders if the real collector is Rama nujan

or if he has borrow ed it from K amba r or whether both he and K amba r collected it together.

Some introductory details of these manuscripts ev en in the form of brief annotations could

have helped to reduce this uncertainty, w hich s eems to be a co mmo n trait o f almos t all books

published posthumously.

Furt hermor e, this “Lis t of Tellers and Colle ctors ，” howev er incomple te it mig ht look,reveals that almost all these tales have been collected from Brahmin and upper caste Hindu

informants. R ama nujan himself belonged to a Br ahmin family. This elite aff i liation w itting

ly or unw itting ly has, it seems, overshadowed this collection, which ev en the editors ack now l

edge (x iv). It wo uld have been interesting and academically highly re wa rding if Ra man ujan

had collected some tales from other nonpre stig ious castes or included some v ersions of tales

from those castes.

 We le ar n that R a m a nu ja n w an te d to ad d fo lk lori st ic notes to thes e tales so that this co l

lection could become more scholarly and also pedagogically useful. Unfortunately, however,

due to his sad and untimely demise, he could not complete these notes for many tales in this

collection. In the notes he was able to make for thirty- six tales of the collection, Ra ma nujan

attempts to identify motifs and tale types, often comparing them with European tales; in the

notes he also gives reasons for the val idity o f his comparisons. T he editors have done a n excellent job by adding tale type and m oti f identification “wherever A K R had not provided the m”

or where they believed “another identification is possible.” (227). Rarely does Ramanujan

compare the important characteristics found in this collection with the narrative repertoire

from other reg ions o f India. A nd whe n he does compare his data w ith other India n narratives,

he confines his comparisons to “written” epics and narrative traditions such as  Ramayana, 

Pancatantra, Kathasaritsagara,  and Jataka.  Despite these small weaknesses in this volume, I

find these notes and comparisons scholarly and enlightening, and they certainly reveal the

scholarly interests o f Ra man ujan.

Stuart Bla ckburn and Al an Dunde s wr ote a preface to the book and made a bibliogr a

phy, glossary, a nd a list of tale types for the book based on the Aar ne- T hompson Index for easy 

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reference and comparisons. T he bibliogr aphy has a few inconsistencies. T he editors have

ignored the K ann ada publications referred to by Ra ma nujan , most likely because these col

lections (published a nd unpublished) w ere not available to them and because o f their lack ofknowledge of the K annada language. T he bibliography also lacks uniformity in listing pub

lications w ith mor e tha n one editor. In some cases the names o f all the editors are listed and

in many other cases the editors chose to give only one name and then add et al.

T he preface, a lthoug h not w ithout merit, does not fulfill the need of a g ood intr oduction

to this interesting collection. At most, it is a kind of tribute— academic tribute— to a scholar-

friend. Both A lan Dundes and Stuart Black burn have researched India n folklore and pub

lished books on the subject. The y thus may have been able to write a g ood intr oduct ion to

this volume that would have made the hook academically more rewarding both for scholars

and students o f folkloristics; a good intro duction w ould have also been a m uch better tribute

to A. K. Ramanujan than the preface. It is interesting to compare Richard Dorson’s and

Ramanujan’s situations: when Richard Dorson died (incidentally, under circumstances sim

ilar to Ram an uja n’s death), leaving incomplete the last vo lume o f Chicag o Unive rsity ’s Series

on “Folktales o f the W or ld” {Folktales o f India  by Beck, Claus, Goswami, Handoo, 1986)

Ramanujan did write an introduction to the book. In short, it is sad that Ramanujan’s book

has no introduction as it surely deserves one.

In conclusion, then, this collection of K anna da folktales is an important collection in

the sense that it is perhaps the last book wr itten by this impo rt ant scholar. T ha t this vo lume

in its present form w ill serve the needs o f folktale research in K arnat aka or elsewhere in In dia

is highly doubtful. How eve r, it is almost certain that lovers of folktales w ill enjoy rea ding this

interesting collection as they once enjoyed re ading G r im m ’s fairy tale collections.

L a l i t a H A N D O O

Central Institute o f Indian Languages

Mysore, India

 IR AN 

P a n A h I S e m n A n I , M U HA M M A D A h m a d . Tarane wa taranesarayl dar Iran 

(Songs and Song Writing in Iran). Tehran: Soroush Press, 1998. 572 

pages. Glossary, index, bibliography, music notations. Paper Rial 19,000; 

ISBN 964-435-101. (In Persian)

T his book is a vo luminous and multi- layered survey on folksongs {tarane)  in Iran that

includes lengthy selections of texts in various locally s poken tongues (Persian, T urkish, Dar i),

as well as their translations into the standard modern Persian language.

T he autho r at first tries to ex plore such fascinating subjects as the re lation o f folksongs

to the earliest layers of Ira nian poetry, the influence o f folk poetry on high literature, a nd the

various reg ional forms o f folk poetry a nd rhy ming a nd rhythmical patterns. The consequent

chapters are devoted to the various genres of Ira nian folk poetry, such as childr en’s games , r id

dles (cistan),  lullabies (lalayi),  and laments for individual and communal occasions {sugvarl, 

'azadan).  T he latter topic includes tex tual samples o f the important S hi’a mo urnin g r itual

performance, the Ta'ziye. Further on is a discussion of songs of mer ry mak ing for the various

seasonal festivals, we dding, a nd birthing celebrations. A lso discussed are wor k songs for v ar

ious ag ricultura l activities, chants of trades men and street performers, songs with s ociopolit

ical and historical content, and satirical ditties and love songs i^dsheqaneha)  from various

regions o f the country (e.g., A zer baijan, the So uth, Khurasa n, Balujistan, and Maza ndera n).