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- Convenors:
-
Mridusmita Mahanta
(Sonapur College (Autonomous))
Alka Michael (Gargi College)
Arunima Das (University of Delhi)
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Short Abstract
An interdisciplinary approach to the tales and traditions of India is sought to meet the ecological issues and cultural identity. It is interwoven in the folk memory in a lived culture within the given context. The pragmatic approach fabricates the social cohesion.
Long Abstract
This panel looks at the issue of how ecology, oral tradition and identity entwine via folk narratives, textile heritage, rock art and belief systems. An interdisciplinary framework includes eco-criticism and postcolonial theory of embodied ethnography and pragmatic ecology which brings together five papers that look at how traditional narratives play a role as repositories of ecological wisdom and cultural identity. The panel looks at the traditional silk stories of Assam’s indigenous silk these narratives are more than what we may call folk memory; a lived culture which presents the interaction of human creativity and ecology. It also explores the Ahom community’s way of seeing the world, in which creation stories and everyday rituals weave together people and nature into a single cosmic fabric. It also looks at water-based belief systems in Assam and their ecological results. From the perspective of Veronica Strang’s work on water cognition it looks at how river and aquatic life-based myths play out human wonder and ethics related to our environment. The quiet voice of Ladakh’s ancient rock art is situated at the confluence of Asian cultures. Mostly petroglyphic in nature these engravings on rock and boulders present to us flora, fauna, human figures and geometric designs that tell us of cultures and peoples which passed through this high-altitude Himalayan area. In the mountain and riverine landscape of India we see traditional oral and performance-based practices which are responsive to modern issues and also preserve environmental and cultural information.
Accepted papers
Session 1 Saturday 13 June, 2026, -Paper short abstract
This abstract will seek to study miraculous deeds in the context of the space of Ākāshigangā, the story associated with it which has been narrated in the caritas (hagiographies) and by the community over the years, and the making of Śaṅkaradeva.
Paper long abstract
How do we navigate through layers of mysticism, hagiographies and stories narrated amidst a community, and arrive at a historical understanding of a natural water body? How do we traverse through the labyrinth of these acts of miracles and read these stories as a historical source? This abstract will seek to study these questions in the context of the space of Ākāshigangā, the story associated with it which has been narrated in the caritas (hagiographies) and by the community over the years, and making of Śaṅkaradeva.
The Batadravā or the Bordowā thān is located in the Nagaon district of Assam, and holds special significance for the Neo-Vaiṣṇava community. The Ākashigangā lake is found adjacent to the holy place. The story mentioned in the caritas was also narrated to me by the satrādhikār (head of the satra). The space is thus an intersection of stories and knowledge which has been narrated over a period of time. This paper would foreground this narrative, and contextualise it in the broader contours of hagiographies, sacred spaces and knowledge production. It will be divided into two broad sections. The first section will explore Śaṅkaradeva and the act of bringing down Ākāshigangā as narrated in the hagiographies and by the community. The subsequent section will seek to answer the questions which had been posed in the beginning of this abstract, as well as how these miraculous stories can be used as a conduit to enhance our understanding of the spaces around us in the present times.
Paper short abstract
This paper explores The Legend of Himal and Nagrai, a Kashmiri folktale that entwines aquatic cosmology, ecological ethics, and cultural identity. Through this serpent-lore, the paper examines memory, loss, and environmental attunement in the oral traditions of Kashmir.
Paper long abstract
This paper examines The Legend of Himal and Nagrai, a Kashmiri folktale retold by anthropologist Onaiza Drabu, as an emblematic narrative of ecological entanglement, cultural continuity, and emotional geography. Rooted in oral tradition, the tale follows the love between a mortal woman, Himal, and the serpent-king Nagrai, whose watery form encodes both danger and devotion. Serpent lore, long associated with rivers and fertility across South Asia, acquires here a distinct Kashmiri inflection—one shaped by aquatic cosmology, loss, and exile.
Drawing on Veronica Strang’s theory of water cognition and Indigenous approaches to eco-narratives, the paper considers how the story reflects a cosmology in which water bodies are animate, sacred, and sovereign. The rupturing of trust between Himal and Nagrai becomes an allegory for broken ecological bonds and the loss of kinship with the nonhuman world. At the same time, the tale preserves environmental knowledge through metaphor and memory, framing rivers not just as resources but as relational beings.
The paper situates the tale within a larger tradition of Kashmiri oral storytelling, a cultural form under threat due to political silencing and ecological disruption. It argues that stories like these encode a moral ecology, where love, doubt, exile, and return are mediated by the land and water itself. Ultimately, this folktale acts as both cultural archive and ecological compass, reminding us that environmental attunement in the Himalayas is deeply entwined with Indigenous memory, myth, and imagination.
Paper short abstract
This paper examines flood memory in Majuli, shaped by Brahmaputra floods as ritualized temporal markers. It explores cultural memory among people, revealing survival knowledge, identity, and spiritual beliefs that transcend mere adaptation, embedded in Indigenous knowledge and collective histories.
Paper long abstract
This paper examines the experiential and cultural dimensions of flood memory in Majuli, the world's largest inhabited river island, which the Brahmaputra River's annual floods have historically shaped. These recurrent floods serve as ritualized temporal markers, profoundly shaping the islanders’ relationships with their environment and collective memory. Flood memories among Majuli’s communities reveal an intricate archive of survival knowledge, spiritual beliefs, and identity formation that transcends mere physical adaptation.
This ethnographic and oral historical study explores flood preparedness as embedded in Indigenous knowledge systems, cultural memory, and identity construction, highlighting a preventive temporal-spatial orientation within the environment. Key strategies, such as food reserves and transportation, mitigate vulnerability amid climatic events.
The study employs collective memory theory to analyze how flood recollections inform adaptive behaviour, while ecocriticism highlights nature’s agency in shaping narrative and identity. Invented tradition provides insights into the active reconstruction of flood rituals and narratives that aim to foster social cohesion amid environmental change. Indigenous knowledge systems further elucidate the localized adaptation strategies and human-environment relationships that are fundamental to Majuli.
By situating flood-preparedness narratives within academic discussions on narrative theory, ecology, and cultural survival, this research contributes to an understanding of how marginalized communities mobilize cultural knowledge and agency in response to ecological uncertainty and the climate crisis.
Paper short abstract
Kurichyan geomyths from Wayanad, Kerala, India present nature as technology. Through acts of seeding, diverting, and knotting, landscapes become corridors, shrines, and commons- stories that encode ecological techniques and cultural memory.
Paper long abstract
This paper draws on four Kurichya geomyths I recorded and translated in Wayanad, Kerala, India- 'Origin Myth of Malakkari', 'Origin of Kurukkalal Bhagavathy', 'The Story of Sea-less Wayanad', and 'Another Story of Sea-less Wayanad'- to explore how landscapes and waterscapes are narrated as acts of making. Unlike many traditions where nature appears as a scenic backdrop or divine fiat, these tales treat nature as technology: a set of procedures that configure land, shrines, and commons.
Three episodes illustrate this procedural view. In travel myths, stones dropped along the deity Muthappan’s route sprout into palms and bamboo, planting corridors that guide movement and provide resources. In shrine-installation tales, volatile forces are pacified through substances- toddy, bamboo, tooth, rock- so that ritual space and settlement can emerge. In “sea-drinking” stories, heroes and kings bind rock chambers to contain salt water, leaving enduring place-names that mark environmental labour. Methodologically, Propp’s functions are used descriptively to tag actions, Ochs and Capps’ framework tracks sequencing and pacing, and performance attention highlights emic names, materials, and place-names. These tools show how plants, liquids, and minerals operate as co-agents in the plot, shaping both narrative form and ecological knowledge. The argument advanced is that Kurichya geomyths define the “natures of narrative” as timing and technique: plots hinge on ecological operations- seeding, diverting, knotting- through which landscapes become corridors, shrines, and territories.
Keywords: Kurichyan; South India; geomythology; landscape narratives; eco-narratology; nature-culture
Paper short abstract
Mundhum is a divine and powerful literature passed orally through generations in the Limboo community of Sikkim. It consists of folktales, myths, stories of creation of the universe, and chanted by traditional experts. This ethnographic paper shall discuss its connection with the natural elements.
Paper long abstract
Mundhum is a form of divine and powerful literature passed orally through generations in the Limboo community of Sikkim. The Limboo is one of the earliest indigenous communities inhabiting Sikkim. Located in the strategic location with three international boundaries, Sikkim comprises of mountainous terrains, and is the eighth Northeast Indian state in the eastern Himalaya. Mundhum is considered a philosophical and cultural foundation of religion in the Limboo society. Recitation of the Mundhum is often observed during any ritual or ceremony in the Limboo households. The Limboo folk poets viz., Samba, and traditional Limboo priests such as Phedangma, Yeba, and Yema are the custodians of this sacred knowledge in the community. The Mundhum often provides narratives of prehistoric accounts, folktales, legends, creation of the universe, creatures and human beings, as well as myths and traditions passed from one generation to the next, and thus it educates people to live in harmony with the elements of nature, the spiritual and the supernatural creating a socio-natural relationship. This paper shall make a humble attempt to understand the significance of Mundhum as oral narratives in the Limboo society in Sikkim with the help of ethnographic fieldwork. It shall also draw perspectives of relationship of the Limboo society with natural elements like stone, river, agriculture etc. through the Mundhum.
Keywords: mundhum, oral tradition, ancestral knowledge, phedangma, yeba