Prof. T.V. Kattimani is an educationist, creative writer, translator and thinker. As a translator, he has worked with languages like Kannada, Hindi, Gujarati and English and studied composite cultures of India and their pan-Indianness represented through different Indian languages. Prof. Kattimani currently serves as the first Vice-Chancellor of the Central Tribal University of Andhra Pradesh (CTUAP); he was formerly the Vice-Chancellor of Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Amarkantak (MP). He is a member of the National Steering Committee for the New Education Policy of India. As an educationist, he has focused on tribal India and education for the tribal and deprived youth.

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Abstracts of the Lectures 

Tribal Identity as depicted in Oral Literature

Tribal oral literature, transmitted over centuries and sometimes millenniums, consists of stories, songs, riddles and other genres, which reflect the tribal worldview, lifestyle and wisdom. They also illustrate knowledge traditions about the environment, as tribals have been the custodians of elements of nature such as forests, minerals, domestic and wild animals. This first talk will focus on the tribal identity thus manifested through oral literature.

Tribal Epics and Indian Knowledge Systems

Tribal epics, composed in different tribal languages, are storehouses of tribal art as well as knowledge systems such as that of cultivation techniques, water management, flora and fauna, and health traditions. This second talk will give a general introduction to tribal epics and focus on a selected few.