The Hindi Oral Epic Tradition: Bhojpuri Loriki.

• Author: Smith, W.L.

Bhojpuri Loriki is the fourth in a series of texts recorded by Shyam Manohar Pandey, being preceded by The Hindi Oral Epic Loriki (1979), The Hindi Oral Epic Canaini (1982) and The Hindi Oral Epic Lorikayan (1987). This Bhojpuri version, performed by the singer Sivnath Caudhari in 1966, was recorded on 48 hours of tape, making it the longest version in the series. Only half the text, a series of episodes Pandey refers to as the marriage of Samvaru, is presented in this volume. According to this version Samvaru or Mal Samvar is born along with a brother to an unwed brahman girl made pregnant by a glance (dithi) of the Sun God (suruj). When the two children are born she abandons them in a pit where Samvaru is found and raised by a dusadh. When older, Samvaru prays to Siva for a valiant brother and his prayer results in Lorik being born to Kholaini. The story is set in motion when Lorik, who grows up to be a notable warrior, is told about Satiya, the daughter of Bamari the king of Suhaval; Lorik decides she would be a perfect match for his older brother and the rest of the poem is concerned with his efforts to overcome the numerous obstacles and catastrophes which threaten to stop the marriage. The greatest of these is the fact that Satiya's father has vowed that no woman in the kingdom will marry and that Satiya herself has no desire to marry Samvaru. Lorik sets out for Suhaval after performing a magnificent puja to Durga during which he offers his own blood to the goddess and as a consequence thereafter the goddess helps him to overcome one peril after another. A major episode concerns a quest to obtain a "divine vermilion pot" (amar simdhora) without which the marriage cannot be performed: it is closely guarded by a raksasi named Surasa in Piranapur, a land ruled by witches. Once the pot has been secured Samvaru's marriage party (barat) sets out for Suhaval; though its members are successively poisoned, swallowed by a rhinoceros and killed by a venomous serpent, they are revived by Lorik with Durga's help and eventually reach their goal where a final obstacle awaits them, the armed resistance of Bamari and his six sons whom Lorik manages to kill in battle. Here the first volume ends.

The text is preceded by a number of short independently paginated introductory chapters. These provide an English summary of the story, information on the singer, a member of the ahir caste who passed away in 1982, and a comparison of the Bhojpuri version to...