Gurughli

Gurughli (also known as Gurghuli) is the titular character of an epic cycle from Central Asia. The cycle includes up to fifty segments which are still performed by the peoples of Turkistan in Tajik as well as Turkic languages.^[1]

Gurughli, whose name means "born of the grave", is the immaculately conceived child of the sister of Ahmadkhan (a Turkistan khan). She dies during pregnancy, and the child is born while the mother is already buried and survives on the milk of one of the mares from Ahmadkhan's herd, until he is found and named by shepherds. The other hero in the tales is his adopted son Ahwazkhan, child of a fairy mother.

His tales are told in all-night storytelling sessions in free verse. The background presumed known by the audience, they start without much introduction and are accompanied by music from a two-stringed lute, the dombra. Later brought into line with Islam, the stories originate from a time before Islam reached the area but became a "vehicle for the transmission of religious and moral instruction, especially targeted at the masses of nonliterate Muslims".^[1]

The extant corpus of Gurughli poetry entails some 100,000 lines. It reached its final form in the 18th century and was first discovered by the outside world through Russian travelers in 1870. It was recorded between 1930 and 1960 and is preserved in the Tajik Academy of Sciences.^[2]

References

1. Claus, Peter J.; Diamond, Sarah; Mills, Margaret Ann (2003). "Gurughli". South Asian Folklore: An Encyclopedia : Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. Routledge. p. 275. ISBN 9780415939195. Retrieved 28 August 2013.
2. Abdullaev, Kamoludin; Akbarzaheh, Shahram (2010). "Gurughli". Historical Dictionary of Tajikistan. Scarecrow. pp. 153–54. ISBN 9780810860612.