Emerging from the conceptual plan of the IGNCA, the faculty
of Janapada Sampada was established in 1988. It complements the programmes of Kala Kosa, and aims at understanding the Arts in their eco-cultural
and socio-economic contexts. Its emphasis is on the oral tradition that orients the
literate tradition in reality. Here theory and practice, textual and oral, verbal, visual
and kinetic are seen as a semiotic whole, not as items to be aggregated. The Indian terms
jana, loka, desa, laukika, maukhika, shastra, prayoga, kshetra, parampara, adi , drsya,
sravya serve as key-words for evolving the Janapada Sampada programmes.
The central concern of the faculty is the rich variegated
heritage of the rural small-scale societies. In the conventional sense of research
discipline it relates to two different fields: anthropology and archaeology, with various
sub-disciplines. However, the research methodology used in Janapada Sampada is different
from that of the conventional disciplines of humanities and social sciences. The approach
is holistic, and a new continuum of shastra and prayoga, textual and oral is being
constructed systematically, not historically, in its theoretical premises. Admittedly, it
has not yet designed a new theory, but has gathered some thoughts and experiences to
construct a new theory.
The faculty has a programmatic character classified as Lifestyle
Studies, Multi-media Presentation and Events, and Children’s World, each with a
number of subprogrammes. This report outlines the main fields of its research activity,
and indicates major achievements of the first ten years.
