Digital Object Identifierhttps://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n5.3
The Bishahari Pooja, a folk ritual tradition of Bihar, is celebrated in Bhagalpur and nearby districts of Bihar and West Bengal. This festival is a unique blend of religion and ritualism, ecology and nature, feminism and visual arts. The festival is associated with the tradition of the Manjusha Painting as the aesthetic representation of the rituals, myths and folklore related to this tradition. Bishahari Pooja is centred around myths relating Manasa Devi and Bishahari along with Bihula and Bala Lakhender that portraits women at the centre of this folk tradition.
Some existing studies dealing with this folk tradition discuss the relationship between culture and gender identities through the folk traditions of Manasa Devi (Maity 46). Researchers have also focused on this tradition being lost due to a lack of preservation (Atreya 52-59). The theme of the folklore represents the human traits such as lust for power and recognition, ego, competition, greed, etc., among the gods and the heroic act of Bihula in protecting her husband, Bala Lakhender, which is a reversal of the majoritarian narrative on the conjugal relationship, wherein the husband protects the wife. The Bishahari Pooja can be viewed through the lenses of the open dialectics of Humanity and Divinity, wherein the ‘lofty divine’ traits of the gods and goddesses often engage in dialogues with the ‘banality called human’.
Priya, Minu, and Sovan Chakraborty. “Bishahari and Belongings: A Critical Exploration of Caste, Gender and Alternative Representations of Folk Tradition in Angh Pradesh (Bihar).” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 5, Oct. 2026, pp. 25-37, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n5.3.
© 2026 The Author(s). Published by the Research Centre for English Language and Literature (RCELL) under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
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