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UO Global Seminar in South India

UO Global Seminar in South India, “Tibetan Buddhism in India” has students from Folklore, Ethnic Studies, Sociology, and Anthropology studying Tibetan and Kannadiga cultures in Karnataka State

Ten to fifteen students take four courses in folklore, sociology, philosophy, and religious studies. This Global Seminar, sponsored and administered by UO’s Office of International Affairs, is offered every other year:

http://international.uoregon.edu/node/958

Students commenced the winter term with an intensive course on folk culture in the Folk traditions of South India.

Folklore Study in South India

The South Indian folk traditions that our Folklore 388 students studied in Mysore, India, included Karnatic music, traditional (Ayurvedic) medicine, popular literature, and yoga. Karnatic music is highly engaging since both the audience and the musicians play important roles and improvisation lends a lively spontaneity to this classical form. After a formal introduction by University of Mysore Professor M. Manjunath, a wildly skilled violinist, students attended two local concerts featuring a vocalist and two violinists, and several students learned to use their hands to keep timing to the rhythm of the ragas in the popular way.

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Traditional Indian medicine is based upon metabolic type, so diagnoses vary slightly from person to person, unlike Western medicine. Students attended lectures by one of Mysore’s foremost ayurvedic doctors and also some lectures by a kind-hearted and knowledgeable man, both of them named Kumar. As a child the latter Kumar worked preparing medicines under the strict direction of his grandfather, who at the time was Mysore’s most famous traditional doctor. There was also a class on Ayurvedic cooking, to render the theoretical more practical. In this tradition, food is used as medicine.

Students read three novels that captured the spirit of South India: Malgudi Days by R.K Narayan (about the town of Mysore) and Bharatipura by U.R Ananthamurty (about a typical Indian village), and a third of their choosing. They received multiple lectures from the bright and well-read translator of Kannada fiction, C.N. Srinath (who knew both authors). Reading these books while being immersed in the social settings in which they take place provided students a deeper connection with the people they interacted with. In addition, learning the Kannada alphabet and a few phrases made roaming around town and village engaging and fun, as they entertained Kannidigas (people of Karnataka) by reading aloud the local signs written in their fabulous fat characters. The warmth that these interactions evoked was well expressed by the way that the Kannidagas covered their hearts with their palms when they spoke with our students who engaged them. This gesture was living folklore.

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The final Karnatic folk discipline examined was yoga. The Vice-President of the Indian Yoga Federation, M.S. Vishwanath, introduced the primary series of Ashtanga Yoga, and the students have had numerous conversations about how these classes impacted their personal growth. They also read and had seminars on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. Learning the theory while simultaneously experiencing the practice enhanced their experience of this Indian folk wisdom also.