From the Desk of the Editor-in-Chief

Humanity Studies in many countries have faced a lot of crisis. The major discipline like Science and Arts, which was considered equally, is valued differently by the different systems. While some people promote and
patronage Science as the major discipline, some people advocate for Arts. Some people think that it is only Science and its studies that can make the people and society materially happy and prosperous. Development Planners foresee the effective use of technology in the improvement of poorest of the poor and aspire to adopt it in the areas where even the minimum opportunity of literacy, health and livelihood has not been provided till
date.

The whole globe has witnessed the great change that the technology and science has brought through inventions since last three centuries. But a human question arise, whether these inventions are in favour of human
harmony or it has its dark side? What worries the global thinkers is about the future of humanity. It has been realized that the third world war may not take place, but the unrest already cropped up in many countries
signifies the cruelty against humanity which is a threat to human harmony and peace. Students have never been a victim of such political unrest. The emerging disintegration between the power groups, the rift between the people in power and people in disadvantaged has reached its peak. It has signaled the global societies to integrate the human values and harmony between the differences and diversities, or the consequences will be more than the world war. For sake of exploiting the nature, the globe has never before been so distorted.As Gandhi said, the world is enough for need, but not enough for the greed.

The question is why the political theories are failing and the most advanced civilization is unable to maintain peace and harmony and why at all a handful people have become so insensitive to the Earth ? Is it the outcome of the vast knowledge that the civilization has given to the human society? Or it is the socio- economic imbalance that decided a group of need challenge the greed? The answer is left to the players of humanity, than
the thinkers of humanity. 

Human culture is a collective creation after affirming its utility, values, and necessity after yearlong experiences. Whatever is socially acceptable and useful for human sustenance has been maintained by the people. The
association of the animate with the inanimate, visible with the invisible, theories with practice, scientific truth with intuition, physics with metaphysics and ideology with the realities has always represented the whole human endeavours, respecting both the self and others. That has kept this earth sustainable. A truth is a relative term and cannot be seen or realized from one angle. Homogenization of human civilization is a great blunder that
the people in greed are practicing. Culture and literature show the diversities of human creation. This is not
myth or fallacies. The orality is not false and the written is not the final truth. The visible or tested is not the reality and the imagined is not without reason or logic.

This volume is all about the human culture, oral tradition, rituals, beliefs, of past and present. Each essay is different from the other in terms of understanding the meaning of human life-world that emanates from the praxis
of human thought and action, individually and collectively. The sum total of all the articles is the sum total of human culture, envisioning a thread of relationship intertwined either in culture, or language or learning. Human is not alone and has a bond of past and present stored in his social action. Either it is culture of the past; development in socio– economic life or learnin  in classroom of the present, human thought has shown its excellence in
totality. To understand the part is not just to ignore the whole. To exploit the nature and physical world is not just to undermine the beyond physical world. The horizon of thought and mind has always connected to the real world as
copious as it has related to the imperceptible and imaginary world.

The space and power are not shared democratically and the opportunity is denied to the others half of the globe. Therefore the other‘s discourse has become more important than the pedants way of looking at the culture and literature, even development. Concept of development differs from region to region. To assert one‘s own identity, land, language and life, the others have always created their culture and literature with more human sensibilities to
forgive the inhumanity and propagate compassion. Therefore , perhaps the values and morals that is narrated in oral tradition and in rituals contains the ethics of the greatest human philosophers and thinkers.

I am thankful to the contributors across the globe , who have been so warmhearted of writing their papers from their cultural and educational world and have presented it to Lokaratna – the gem of the people. This is the eighth volume of Folklore Foundation created on love and solidarity of the writers. This volume is symbolically momentous in terms of Indian mythology that Krishna, the lover God was the eighth -birth from his mother‘swomb. We as a global group, believe that the Sama-dharma – ―like minded‖ of this globe will withstand for nourishing the beautiful world with our beautiful mind. Singing the Vedic words Vasudheva Kutubakam- ―where
the whole globe is a family‖ , I hope to expand the esprit de corps to more writers of the globe, with their endeavours, love and of course Karuna– compassion.

My obligations are not adequate to Dr Anand Mahanand and Dr Ranjan Panda for their noble venture to be with me to edit this volume. I am also  ondly thankful to Prof. Mark Turin, A noted Himalayan folklorist
,University of British Columbia, US for his kind diassmination of Lokaratna in his World Oral Literature Project as a collaborator with Folklore Foundation, from its inception of this journal.

Mahendra Kumar Mishra