The Reflection of the Spiritual Tradition in Pashtu Folklore: A study of Poetic Genre “Kakarai Ghardi

Abstract

Traditional societies in all over the world carry a great sum of knowledge and wisdom which is constructed in the course of cultural process which is seldom heard and least understood. Folk forms of poetics and prose expressions are sole repositories of these societies which helps researchers, ethnographers, and cultural anthropologists to reconstruct an image of these societies which primarily rely on oral tradition. The folkloric genre of Pashto accumulates unprecedented texts and contexts to be unearthed. The most pervasive folkloric genres like Tappa, Sandara, Kakarai Ghardi, Char-Baita, Sarwakai, Loba, Da Attan Narey, Balandai, Mathnavis and several others have rich contents to unpack the popular notions of spirituality and people’s sense of religion and divinity. In order to study a unit of the Pashto folklore, this paper is taking on the Kakarai Ghari, a genre specifically created by the ordinary men and women in Northern Balochsitan predominantly inhabited by Pashtuns. The paper analyzes some selective couplets of Kakarai Ghari which carries the themes of people’s faith in God, their affiliation and aspiration from the divine omens, metaphors, symbols and particularly their association and love for the Almighty Allah, his prophet Muhammd (P.B.U.H) and Sufi saints of the locale.