Avula Jyothi

Social Religion Richtual Practices and Education of Tribes in A.p. Avula Jyothi

India has always been described as a ?melting pot? of races and culture. Tribal in India is the most glaring example exploitation indifferences and lack of appreciation for our divergent minority groups. The present study is an attempt to study the enthnohistoric and historiographic literature available on various aspects of culture and society among diverse tribes across the world and the Indian subcontinent and reveal the paucity of ethnohistoric and historiographic research in India, especially the cultural aspects of tribes in Andhra Pradesh. According to the 1991 census the tribal population of India is 6,77,58, 380 constituting nearly 8.08 per cent to total population of the country. There are about 500 tribes in India existing and ethnogrpahic accounts cover a vast majority of the tribes. All these ethnographic accounts provide brief ethnohistoric descriptions of the tribes, all by way of passing references. As such studies wholly devoted to an examination of the history of the tribes are few. Even the historians have not made any considerable effort to depict the historiography of the tribes in India.