Recent advances in folklore studies makes it possible to reasonably address the complex origin of historical-ballads. This scholarship carefully explores the forms, linguistic styles and more precisely, the mental universe of the rural society embedded in historical ballads. Doli-Puran—an Assamese historical ballad narrating the events related to the peasant rebellion of 1894—could be a key to an understanding of the social history of the Assamese peasantry. The textual content of this oral narrative underwent significant transformation over the years together with the changing political landscape of Assam and the Assamese peasant society. This essay explains the dynamics of the social origin of this oral narrative and its significance. It shows how historical imagination and social memory, mostly drawn from an Assamese rural landscape, influenced the Assamese nation building process in the twentieth century.
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