Volume-XII, Issue-IV, July 2026 |
বঙ্গ-ওড়িশা সীমান্তের কৃষ্ণযাত্রার ধারা: একটি আঙ্গিকগত পাঠ পূর্বাশা মাইতি, গবেষক, যাদবপুর বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়, পশ্চিমবঙ্গ, ভারত |
Received: 21.07.2026 | Accepted: 26.07.2026 | Published Online: 31.07.2026 | Page No: 31-46 | ||||
DOI: 10.29032/ijhsss.vol.12.issue.04W.343 | |||||||
The Tradition of Krishna Jatra in the Bengal–Odisha Border Region: A Structural Analysis Purbasha Maity, Research Scholar, Jadavpur University, West Bengal, India | ||
ABSTRACT | ||
Krishnajatra is one of the oldest traditional theatrical forms of Bengal which had flourished once in both Kolkata and rural Bengal but now comes in verge of extinction. This traditional Bengali theatre which had originated from the older dramatic performance such as ‘natgit’ and ‘lilanat’, gradually converted into a complete theatrical performance from the end of 18th century by Shishuram Adhikari and his disciples and soon became a non-ritualistic popular mode of entertainment for mass audience, besides the earlier ritualistic, religious performance of ‘Krishnalila’. In Orissa border region of South-West Bengal Krishnajatra was performed as ‘Balak-jatra’ by the troops of 8-12 years old boys throughout the year in any occasions such as village festivals, community gatherings, seasonal fair or even family functions, especially in wealthy households. Once widely celebrated, this folk performance is now almost disappeared because of modern day entertainment, but still preserved in memories and manuscripts. Although Krishnajatra has occupied a significant place in Bengal’s cultural heritage, very little documentation work exists till today except the palas of few eminent ‘Adhikaris’ such as Gobinda Adhikari, Nilkantha Mukhopadhay, Krishnakamal Goswami etc. The palas written by the anonymous village artists and performed in various regional pockets all over the Bengal throughout centuries are yet to be documented and sadly are not even discussed much in our academic discourse. In this context the purpose of the study is to examine the tradition of Krishnajatra in Bengal-Orissa border region with special emphasis on its performative style and reconstruct its distinctive theatrical features on basis of a hand-written manuscript of the play ‘Manbhanjan’ collected by the author from a veteran performer and also the interviews taken from him and few other older folks who still hold the memory of it as fresh as present. | ||
Keywords: Traditional performance, Folk Theatre, Intangible Cultulral heritage, Documentation, Reconstruction of theatrical features, Performance study, Analysis of performance structure and theatrical style |