Oral Tradition- A Promising Area of Comparative Literature Reference to Assamese ‘Dākar Bachan’

Abstract

Literature in its comprehensive sense includes both oral and written versions of the creative exuberance of human mind in language. That is why the history of literature across the globe is much more ancient than that of written form in any country. Hence oral tradition is rightly considered the mother of written literature. It embodies a vast world of age-old traditional knowledge of the life in its totality lived by the people of a region. Assamese oral tradition is too a very resourceful encyclopedic body of literature. Especially the Dakar bachan, bihu nam, biya nam, aai nam, phool konwarar geet, moni konwarar geet, tribal folk music- all are immeasurable sources of embodiment of the peoples living in the north-east region of the Indian republic. The present paper is an attempt to focus how ‘Dakar Bachan’- the sayings of Dak embodies the all encompassing traditional knowledge of the peoples of Assam.