PUTHIPORA

This 288 page book is a reproduction of David Kanes 2008 doctoral thesis on puthipoṛa a Bengali tradition of book and manuscript reading Kanes thesis pursues two central aims The first is ethnographic to provide a documentation and description of puthipoṛa as it was performed in Sylhet Bangladesh in 2005 The second is historical to shed light on a historical mysteryhow Islam spread so rapidly and pervasively in Bengal from the sixteenth century Kanes hypothesis is that puthipoṛa was used in this process