CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Namgail, Stanzin Dazang |
|---|---|
| Title | Endangered Oral Tradition In Zanskar Valley |
| Summary | The present Thesis aims to document the endangered oral tradition of Zanskar valley in the Indian Himalayan Region. Zanskar due to its geogriphical location remained isolated and hard to access in the past. Moreover, because of strategic location close to the border with Pakistan and China. Zanskar was declared a restricted area and was reopened to foreigners only in 1974. During my research, I recorded various songs, tales, riddles and oral history interviews in Zanskar, which are deposited in the Open Society archive (OSA), Budapest. It will be openly accessible for both researchers and Zanskari people interested rediscovering their culture and historical identity. In the past few years, oral tradition has suffered great losses and the people of Ladakh/Zanskar have included themselves in the fold of unchecked globalisation. Modernization, new lifestyles, practices and social mores in the recent decades is rapidly changing the traditional culture, including oral tradition. With a road being constructed to connect the valley with the Indian road system, the number of visitors will increase exponentially, causing drastic changes in the region's traditional lifestyles. There have been a few attempts to document the rich cultural tradition by some researchers on Ladakh: A.H Franke and Tashi Rabgias can be cited as an example- still the need to document the tradition remains overarching. Oral tradition in Zanskar valley used to play a vital role and, in some aspect, it still continues to do so (like the wedding songs), though its importance is gradually diminishing. The primary objective of the thesis is to involve local experts, to cooperate with the local community and raise awareness about the cultural importance of oral tradition among Zanskari people through the cooperation with the educational activities of NGO Csoma's Room Foundation. It may involve youth collecting text and the collected material in the future will deposited in the database in OSA. |
| Supervisor | Spat Eszter |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/namgail_stanzin.pdf |
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