By the middle of the first millennium BC, the northern part of the Indian subcontinent had largely fallen under the political control of a people who had spread widely over the region from the West, and who were now well advanced in the process of establishing kingdoms centered round major towns. As they spread they carried their language (Sanskrit) and their distinctive culture with them. This was a culture that had already produced a substantial corpus of texts ...
Pabuji, a medieval Rajput hero from the deserts of Marwar, is widely worshipped as a folk-deity capable of protecting against ill fortune. The principal form of worship entails the night-long singing of Pabuji's deeds by bard-priests or bhopos. This takes place in front of a long painted cloth, or par, which functions as the temple of the deity and depicts those same deeds. This chronicles the epic narrative in English free verse as well as interesting details ...