Pareidolia is an interesting concept that gives a wide scope for understanding the complex relationship between culture, society, and landscapes. It is not merely a perception of human images or objects on natural entities, rather it is an establishment of cultural relation or relatedness with the perceived objects through a “tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between two unrelated things” Robert (2017), cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia) - technically known as apophenia. Pareidolia is defined as “tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern [and] […] the human ability to see shapes or make pictures out of randomness” (Pamela Ferdinand, Merriam-Webster,:2023, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pareidolia ), or as “imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist” (Collins Dictionary, 2023, www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/pareidolia), and or as “our brains are wired to look for faces in objects, calling the phenomenon pareidolia” (Buffins in The Sun (2012), Quoted in Collins, https://www.collinsdictionary.com/sentences/english/pareidolia). Although these perceptions are founded upon the ‘self-referential over-interpretations of actual sensory perceptions’ Robert (2017), cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia), their significant role for community’s spiritual life is inevitable as they transform natural things into tangible objects to be protected as part of their cultural heritage with esoteric values. Interestingly, a lot of artistic and aesthetic elements of the local communities could be seen reflected in these perceptions which are also best-known examples of elegant craft culture associated with different genres of folklore including myths, stories, beliefs, customary practices, materials culture, etc., that together constitute the folklife in a particular environmental setting. However, by referring to the self-evolved sacred landscapes of Je Tsongkhapa and Mahakala Gonbo of Lungnak valley in Ladakh region, this article delineates the artistic, aesthetic, and spiritual life associated with the splendorous and magnificent mountains that emerge to shed their passivity to acquire performativity for giving a new dimension to human life. Based on the data collected through observation method, case study and extensive interviews, this article also explores the nature and significance of the performative status of natural objects for future generations through their constant guidance, support and preaching of moral and ethical values that are indispensable in the globalized context. Finally, this article is an attempt to expand the horizon of literature and its concepts to contemplate things around us in the forms of tangible and intangible heritages which necessitate interdisciplinary tools.
Folklore is a dynamic process and it appropriates the changes in society while simultaneously retaining the elements of tradition and the past to ascertain its continuity of tradition and contemporary relevance. Considering folk practices, the earlier studies had encountered the stereotypical notions constructed around the folklore materials and folklore processes. And some of these notions implied the characteristics of folk practices as traditional, rurality, outdatedness, superstitious, archaic, static, not contemporary, and, to the extent, as irrational. Thus, the later studies on folk practices had to prove the role of folklore in explicating the complex relationship humans have with the natu1re, cosmos and supernatural on the one hand and in contemplating the reflections of their creativity, unconsciousness and their cognitive encounters in their socio-cultural life on the other hand. However, there are two striking features, namely, anonymity and community representation, that make folklore a more individual creation with community ownership and it facilitates the study of folklore folk practices as a first step towards understanding the dimensions of community life. Therefore, while representing the ethos of a community, folklore and folk practices show inclusiveness and accommodativeness by providing either intersection between different communities or by identifying points of convergence or divergence. By taking a few examples from the Santal community of Odisha, this article emphasizes the point that folk practices are rich and meaningful sources that play a significant role in understanding the community life by relating them with “cognition and values” (Dundes 1975:xi-xii) and also by making us realize how they “bring unconscious content into consciousness” (1975:xi)
A good number of writings in different forms are available on Ambedkar and his writings. Particularly, his Annihilation of Caste (AoC) is being overwhelmingly explored with varied objectives and purposes. Despite having aims and objectives for fulfill their agenda, with their own methodologies and theoretical frameworks, they had explored and highlighted the different dimensions and importance of the AoC, which, indeed, was considered controversial in its speech form for the Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal (JPTM), organizer of the conference that was supposed to be held in 1936. Some of the text were “unbearable” for the organizers for having content objectionable, but “would not change a comma” was the response from Ambedkar, and this speech became a book on May 15, 1936, at his own expense. Though there are narratives and anecdotes around the text and its production, the aim of this paper is neither about the making of the book nor what happened to the book. With the self-explanatory title, which has both the name of the text and the social agenda of the author, this paper employs the descriptive tool in deciphering the interplay between the text and the society mediated and manipulated through signifiers that are not only social and cultural but also historical. If, for example, “unbearable” becomes a signifier to connote the mindset of the dominants, then “would not change a comma” seems to transform into a signifier within the same system to connote equally a larger thing in contrast to the former. Interestingly, the text that is filled with and the result of mental agony that is due to the socio-cultural and symbolic “happenings”, has evolved as a sign to become a social agenda not only for the author of the text but also for humanity. Therefore, this reading is not a way to consolidate what is said or written; rather it problematizes the “signs” through their inherent properties of interconnectedness and intertextuality to explore the unexplored on the basis of the frozen text in the fluid social situations. As this study explains, the metaphorical nature of the text is an interesting aspect because of how the overall text is the result of a simple process that is the basic principle of any metaphorical conceptualization of abstract entities in terms of concrete instances that are atrocities, inhuman practices on the voice-less people. By offering a complete summary of the text, which the readers of the present generation may find useful to know the historical perspective on the presence of democratic voices against the caste system, this study presents a simple discussion that conveniently argues in favour of the social agenda, and in the process, many of the points are reproduced with the intension of not hurting anyone, rather, to present what has happened to the speech text. Further, the readers are expected to have an open-minded reading of this article as well as the text of Ambedkar, and the summary will be useful for the young scholars who do not so far have any access to the text.
Being the contemporary of Roland Barthes and also prominent scholar in French Semiotics, and also known for founding the Parisian School of Semiotics, Algirdas Julien Greimas, with his formal trainings in structural linguistics shaped the theory of signification by adding plastic semiotics. Indeed, his masterly contributions that had given a new direction in the study of narratives include the famous semiotics square, actantial model, concepts of isotopy, narrative programme and the semiotics of the natural world. However, the actantial model developed by Greimas in 1966 provided an analytical tool for studying various actions carried out by different actors (“actants”) in a real or fictional story. Although developed from the suggestion given by Vladimir Propp that his [Propp’s] seven dramatis personae such as ‘villain’, ‘donor’, ‘helper’, ‘princess/sought-for-person’, ‘dispatcher’, ‘hero’, and ‘false hero’ could be reduced further, Greimas proposed the actantial narrative schema with six actants that manifest their movements of relationship along the line founded on knowledge and power. However, the ‘false hero’ as one of the dramatis personae could be seen as important as, and as similar to, others in the narrative structure, its modality is quite interesting, and it tends to warrant an academic discussion to contemplate its morphology. Taking few examples from folktales and drawing insights from the Greimasian actantial model, this study presents the semiotic account of the ‘false hero’ to highlight the fact that the ‘false hero’ occupies a significant place not only within the real and fictional stories but also in daily life, by explaining the veridictory modality structure of truth and falseness. By drawing examples from folktales, this article comprehends the nature of the ‘false hero’, who is neither a hero nor a villain, for providing a grammatical framework that facilitates our smooth handling of the notion that is indispensably occupying our everyday life. Therefore, the significance of this paper is that it is lessening our efforts to decipher the nature of different characters in different forms of narratives and their presentations in different media.
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