Old Mysore · Deccan Inland Plateau
The life and miracles of Mahadeshwara, a Shaiva ascetic of the southern hills who rides a tiger. The epic runs to tens of thousands of lines and is sung by Kamsale performers who keep time on brass discs.
Sung at: Night-long recitation at jaatres and in households under a vow. Sung by initiates rather than professionals, and largely by the communities of the forest edge. Recorded versions exist but the form is designed for a night, not a track.
The travels of Manteswamy, a wandering teacher who challenges ritual authority and is repeatedly thrown out of respectable places. Sung by Neelagara singers to a drone and a small tambura.
Sung at: All-night performance, chiefly in Mandya and Chamarajanagar. Its social argument is explicit and is the reason the epic was collected late — it circulated among communities whose oral literature was not being written down.
A herding hero who protects cattle, sung by pastoral communities of the dry northern taluks.
Sung at: Cattle festivals and Kadu Golla settlements.
Women's ritual songs sung in unison at each stage of a wedding, blessing the couple and instructing the bride, with a refrain that gives the genre its name.
Sung at: Weddings and naming ceremonies.
Work songs timed to the rotation of a hand quern, in which women sang about marriage, in-laws and their own households. The genre is effectively extinct because the machine that made it possible is gone.
Sung at: At the grinding stone, before dawn.
Songs to the earth sung at the field bund, with offerings made at the furrow rather than in a temple.
Sung at: The full moon of the sowing and harvest months.
Philosophical songs of wandering singers, set to simple recurring tunes and carrying an anti-ritual argument in ordinary village vocabulary.
Sung at: Evening gatherings, mendicant singing.
The folk songs of Old Mysore — what they are about, who sings them and when. (7)