FROM ARTRANSMISSION TO ARTRANSFORMATION: THE JOURNEY OF STORYTELLING IN KERALA AND ARABIA

Abstract

“Every art is first born in the pure innocence of tribal gatherings, then carried into the hands of priests, and finally sanctified into the communal rituals of religion”. This reflection is not only about art's origin but about its dual journey-of Artransmission and Artransformation. Art never exists in isolation; like rivers, it flows, merges and takes new names in new lands. What we call today Kadhaprasangam in Kerala, or Maqamat in the Arab world, is part of this Artransmission-the living current through which stories travel, adapt and sanctify themselves in different tongues. In Kerala, Kadhaprasangam grew out of rustic folk songs and devotional gatherings, becoming a festive performance that carried epics, scriptures and folk- lore to common people, especially in the cultural heartlands of Kozhikode and Kannur. Across the seas, the Maqamat of al-Hamadhani and al-Hariri emerged as stations of eloquence, playful in wit, sharp in satire, yet equally communal in performance. Though distinct in tone-one devotional, the other satirical-both traditions reveal a shared reverence for the spoken word, a festival of voices where prose, poetry and memory intertwined. Ultimately, the study urges that oral art lives a double life: it travels across borders (Artransmission) and reshapes itself into new vessels (Artransformation). Both Kerala and the Arab world, though distant in geography, converge in their devotion to storytelling as sacred art-a practice into the living heritage of communities.'