A Flowering Tree and Other Oral Tales from India

A. K. Ramanujan, Stuart Blackburn, Alan Dundes

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520311459
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

This book of oral tales from the south Indian region of Kannada represents the culmination of a lifetime of research by A. K. Ramanujan, one of the most revered scholars and writers of his time. The result of over three decades' labor, this long-awaited collection makes available for the first time a wealth of folktales from a region that has not yet been adequately represented in world literature. Ramanujan's skill as a translator, his graceful writing style, and his profound love and understanding of the subject enrich the tales that he collected, translated, and interpreted.   With a written literature recorded from about 800 A.D., Kannada is rich in mythology, devotional and secular poetry, and more recently novels and plays. Ramanujan, born in Mysore in 1929, had an intimate knowledge of the language. In the 1950s, when working as a college lecturer, he began collecting these tales from everyone he could—servants, aunts, schoolteachers, children, carpenters, tailors. In 1970 he began translating and interpreting the tales, a project that absorbed him for the next three decades. When Ramanujan died in 1993, the translations were complete and he had written notes for about half of the tales.   With its unsentimental sympathies, its laughter, and its delightfully vivid sense of detail, the collection stands as a significant and moving monument to Ramanujan's memory as a scholar and writer.

Many titles in the Voices Revived program are also newly available as ebooks, offered at a discounted price to support wider access to scholarly work.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Editors’ Preface
• 1. A Story and a Song
• 2. Acacia Trees
• 3. The Adventures of a Disobedient Prince
• 4. Bride for a Dead Man
• 5. A Brother, a Sister, and a Snake
• 6. A Buffalo Without Bones
• 7. Cannibal Sister
• 8. Chain Tale
• 9. Another Chain Tale: What an Ant Can Do
• 10. The Clever Daughter-in-law
• 12. The Dead Prince and the Talking Doll
• 13. A Dog’s Daughters
• 14. A Dog’s Story
• 15. Dolls
• 16. Double Double
• 17. Dumma and Dummi
• 18. Dwarfs
• 19. A Flowering Tree
• 20. Flute of Joy, Flute of Sorrow
• 21. Fools
• 22. A Jackal King
• 23. For Love of Kadabu
• 24. A Girl in a Picture
• 25. The Glass Pillar
• 26. A Golden Sparrow
• 27. The Greatest Thing
• 28. Hanchi
• 29. The Horse Gram Man
• 31. The Husband’s Shadow
• 32. In the Kingdom of Foolishness
• 33. In Search of a Dream
• 34. King and Peasant
• 35. Kutlawa
• 36. The Lampstand Woman
• 37. The Magician and His Disciple
• 38. A Minister’s Word
• 39. Monkey Business
• 40. The Mother Who Married Her Own Son
• 41. Muddanna
• 42. Nagarani (“Serpent Queen”)
• 43. A Ne’er-do-well
• 44. Ñinga on My Palm
• 45. Ogress Queen
• 46. An Old Couple
• 47. The Past Never Passes
• 48. A Peg and a Keg
• 49. The Pomegranate Queen
• 50. A Poor Man
• 51. The Princess of Seven Jasmines
• 52. The Prince Who Married His Own Left Half
• 53. The Rain King’s Wife
• 54. Rich Man, Poor Man
• 55. A Sage’s Word
• 56. The Serpent Lover
• 57. A Shepherd’s Pilgrimage
• 58. Sister Crow and Sister Sparrow
• 59. Siva Plays Double
• 60. The Sparrow Who Wouldn’t Die
• 61. A Sparrow With a Single Pea
• 62. Tales for a Princess
• 63. The Talking Bed
• 64. A Thief, a Ram, a Bear, and a Horse
• 65. Three Blouses
• 66. Three Magic Objects
• 67. Three Sisters Named Death, Birth, and Dream
• 68. The Three-Thousand-Rupee Sari
• 69. Thug and Master-Thug
• 70. Tree Trunk for a Boat
• 71. The Turtle Prince
• 72. A Wager
• 73. What the Milk Bird Said
• 74. Who Is the Greatest?
• 75. Why the Sky Went Up
• 76. The Worship of a Household God
• 77. A Story to End All Stories
• A Flowering Tree
• Notes on the Tales
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• List of Tellers and Collectors
• List of Tale Types