Cultural Adaptation,Community Self-Representation and Oral Tradition of the Mahuris

Abstract

The history of the Mahuris, a trading community from Mathura that migrated in large numbers to Bihar in the fourteenth century, remains largely understudied in scholarship. This might be due to the absence of written records on the history of the Mahuris. However, for the Mahuris, their oral tradition served as a source of collective memory and didactic lessons. Their oral tradition was compiled by Munshi Gaya Ram in Mahuri Bhushan (1888), which records their migration, social organisation and cultural practices. This article examines the processes of migration, cultural adaptation and community self-representation of the Mahuris as apparent from the Mahuri Bhushan as well as other epigraphic and documentary sources. It analyses Mahuri Bhushan as an internally authored repository of memory that records migration, social organisation and cultural practices, thus situating Mahuri history within wider debates on oral traditions in historiography.