Bauls of Bengal: In the Quest of Man of the Heart

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Bauls of Bengal pledge to delve deep into the inner recess of life of the community of singers to explore the basic understanding of their philosophy and sadhana. The study centres round the continuous appeal for searching the moner manus or Man of the Heart. It is exclusively based on long-term field investigations amongst this community of singers with rich cultural heritage. Their way of life is highly characterised by many peculiar behaviour-patterns and for these they constitute a specific entity of their own. Unlike other earlier works in this sphere the is study claims to be the pioneer because of the fact that it tries to inquire into the Baul way of life through the interpretation of empirical data collected by painstaking field work.

Of late, the Bauls have aroused world- wide interest in consequence of their visit to many countries of the world for the presentation of their tradition-bound songs with the accompaniment of characteristic dance. Written basically in anthropological perspective with conspicuous inter- disciplinary understanding this book would cater to the need of many music loving people as well as interested scholars in the fields of anthropology, sociology, religion, philosophy, folk culture, spiritual studies, ethnomusicology and ethnic integration based on the idea of universal brotherhood.

Dr. Rebati Mohan Sarkar, M.Sc., Ph.D., D.Litt. is well-known as a devoted researcher in the sphere of anthropological study. He is equally interested in both the broad fields of anthropology-biological and cultural-and he has to his credit a good number of authentic work of variegated nature in these two major fields. Amongst the published books Fundamentals of Physical Anthropology and Regional Cults and Rural Traditions have aroused tremendous interest in the community of readers.

Dr. Sarkar is the Editor, Man in India, an international Journal of Anthropology. Currently he is on the faculty of the Department of Anthropology, Bangabasi College, Calcutta.

India is well-known in the world perspective as a land of traditions. The tradition-bound societies of this country have got certain specialities of their own. The land of diversities has specifically become unity-oriented only through the possession of rich cultural heritage. It cuts across all sorts of differentiation and inequalities. In spite of the presence of conspicuous differences in the life-ways and thought-ways of the diver- sified communities having variegated philosophy of life, here exists an internal current of integration which marks the speciality of India. The social heritage in respect of a particular community vis-a-vis a country is conditioned by slow cultural transmission through space and time. The norms, traditions, folkways and mores as well as behaviour-patterns of the people synthetically constitute what is called cultural heritage. On categorical analysis through multifarious view-points it will be seen that the heritage is totally influenced by the overall life-philosophy of the country in which the particular group or community has developed. Therefore, through the various patterns of movement and different features of actions of these groups or communities the total picture of the cultural heritage of the country is seen to be reflected. There are variegated folk communities in India which possess distinctive cultural heritage of their own that have developed through their time-long march for adjustment with the surroundings. The intensive study of these tradition-bound communities does a great deal in understanding the cultural heritage of the country where they live and work. It is true that these small groups "with which conformity identification are sought is relatively small, both areally and numerically but its time dimension aims to be long, its consciousness of conformity with the past is strong" (Kroeber, 1948: 611).