Two Tamil folktales: The story of King Matanakâma - The story of peacock Râvana. Translated from the Tamil by Kamil V. Zvelebil.

Original bdg. Dust wrapper. Roy. 8vo. (23 x 16 cm). In English. [Lvii], 236 p. Two Tamil folktales: The story of King Matanakâma - The story of peacock Râvana. Translated from the Tamil by Kamil V. Zvelebil. "Taamil literary folklore has so far received little attention, in spite of a few early publications which appeared mostly in the 19th century. Mosst of Tamil literary texts translated into Western languages, or analyzed in Indological literature, belonged too the Tamil 'Great Tradition' of high literary culture. And yet, there exists an enormous wealth of oral and semi-oral traditions of verbal art in Tamil, as in any other Indian language; some of these pieces of literary folklore have appeared in print as chapbooks and are very popular with Tamil readers, but ignored by 'respactable' literary scholarship. The two folk-narratives translated in this book belong to the favourite pieces of Tamil folklore. Apart from being expressions of sheer narrative joy and creative fantasy of the Tamil people,they are a rich source of comparative data on various motifs, customs, stylistic devices etc., and therefore they will not only amuse and delight the general reader, but be of great use to all students of Indian literatures, and of comparative folklore.".