“I give you a star!” The wonders of the folk astronomy of the Indian Himalayas
https://doi.org/10.28995/2658-4158-2021-1-154-163
Abstract
The essay tells about the author’s experience in collecting data on vernacular astronomy of the peoples of India. The attention is paid to the mythological motif about the origin of meteors – “shooting stars”, which is widespread in two Himalayan states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and attempts to find out which element of local flora or fauna is associated in the popular mind with the stars that have fallen to the earth.
Keywords
vernacular mythology,
folk astronomy,
folk medicine,
meteors,
Kumaon,
Kullu,
Himalaya,
Western Rajasthan,
Munda tribes,
Odisha,
India
Supporting agencies: The research is supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the grant № 19-012-00355 “The investigation of the Kullui language based on the oral texts corpus”.
About the Author
E. A. Renkovskaya
Institute of Linguistics RAS;
Institute of Oriental Studies RAS
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Evgeniya A. Renkovskaya
bld. 1, Bolshoy Kislovsky lane, Moscow,125009;
bld. 12, Rozhdestenka St., Moscow, 107031
References
1. Renkovskaya, E.A., Krylova, A.S. and Berezkin Yu.E. (2018), “New Data on the Folklore and Mythology of India (the Kullui and Sora Materials)”, in Al’bedil’, M.F. and Yanchevskaya, N.A. (eds.), Mitrasampradānam: sbornik nauchnykh statei v chest’ Ya.V. Vasil’kova [Mitrasampradānam: A collection of papers in honour of Yaroslav Vassilkov], МАE RAS, Saint-Petersburg, Russia, pp. 39–50.
Review
For citations:
Renkovskaya E.A. “I give you a star!” The wonders of the folk astronomy of the Indian Himalayas. Studia Religiosa Rossica: Russian Journal of Religion. 2021;(1):154-163. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.28995/2658-4158-2021-1-154-163
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