The Aesthetic Asceticism of the Mad
A Look into Baulism and the Bauls of Bangladesh
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29173/comp68Abstract
The Bauls of Bangladesh, West Bengal, and other parts of India are a distinct ascetic sect that practices spirituality through songs, music, and poetry that were passed down orally from a teacher (Guru) to a disciple (Shirsha). Their ideology is a mix of yogic-tantric practices of Buddhist Sahajiya, Vaishnavism Sahajiya, and later Sufi thoughts. Bauls are often called a heretic sect because of their rejection of institutionalized religion, consumerism, society, and, for many Bauls, even marriage. Baul songs and spirituality emphasize the search for the connection between man and the Divine and love and symbolize the Bengali folk identity.
In this paper, placing Baulism within the Anthropology of Art vs. Aesthetics discourse, I show how Baul songs, and their lifestyle can be both. I discuss the rising appropriation of Baul folk music and aesthetics by modern media and in capitalist spaces and how it started to gain traction when the elite society started to acknowledge Bengali folk music. Baul giti (song) is an established genre of music, and they tend to mediate between both art while providing aesthetic appreciation. With the rise of village core aesthetics and romanticization, their music, style, and philosophy have found new spaces in media, fashion, and business.
References
Abdel, Mannan. 2009. অখণ্ড লালন সঙ্গীত [Lalon Sangeet Akhanda]. Dhaka: Rodela.
Ahmed, Rafiuddin. 1981. The Bengal Muslims: 1871–1906: a quest for identity. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Introduction. In Distinction: a social critique of the judgment of taste. Pierre Bourdieu, ed. Pp. 1–35. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Capwell, Charles. 1988. The popular expression of religious syncretism: the Bauls of Bengal as apostles of brotherhood. Popular Music 7(2):123–132.
Coote, Jeremy. 2006. Marvels of everyday vision: the anthropology of aesthetics and the cattle-keeping Nilotes. In The anthropology of art: a reader. M. Mass, ed. Pp. 281–301. Oxford: Blackwell.
Dundes, Alan. 1979. Analytic essays in folklore. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Dasgupta, Atis. 1994. The Bauls and their heretic tradition. Social Scientist 22(5-6):70–83.
Datta, Rajeshwari. 1978. The religious aspect of the Baul songs of Bengal. Journal of Asian Studies May:445–455.
Flores, Toni. 1985. The anthropology of aesthetics. Dialectical Anthropology 10(1-2):27–41.
Gell, Alfred. 1998. Art and agency: an anthropological theory. Oxford: Clarendon.
Haq, Muhammad Enamul. 1975. A history of Sufi-Ism in Bengal. Dacca: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
Maquet, Jacques. 1979. Introduction to aesthetic anthropology, no. 1. Malibu: Undena.
Morphy, Howard. 2006. From dull to brilliant: the aesthetics of spiritual power among the Yolngu. In The anthropology of art: a reader. M. Mass, ed. Pp. 302–320. Oxford: Blackwell.
Schneider, Harold K. 1956. The Interpretation of Pakot visual art. Man 56:103–106.
Thompson, Robert Farris. 1989. Yoruba artistic criticism. Essay. In Traditional artist in African societies. W. L. D'Azevedo, ed. Pp.19–61. Bloomington: Indiana University.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Nazia B. Mahmud
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Attribution CC BY
