NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FOLK & TRADITIONAL HERITAGE
Research and Publications
VIRSA RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS CENTER conducts field surveys and active village to village recordings of folk traditions. It conducts and commissions research in all sub-fields of folk and traditional heritage like oral traditions (folk songs, romantic folktales, nursery rhymes; etc), children games, celebrations at birth and weddings and others. It publishes books on various facets of Pakistani folklore and cultural heritage covering all provinces and regions of Pakistan. Books are produced in series such as folk songs, folk tales, folk romances. epics, folk entertainment, folk poetry, Sufi poetry, cultural information, cultural surveys, folk classics, oral traditions and rare reprints.
Lok Virsa has the mandate to document traditional heritage at the regional, district and sub-district level. Since the institute has currently no branches in other regions, a network of writers, scholars, universities, colleges and schools has been involved to carry out the task at the regional level. Towards this end, Lok Virsa commissions research projects and papers on significant aspects of our culture to students from different universities and colleges and also funds independent research studies.
Published over 200 books on various facts of Pakistani folklore and cultural heritage covering all regions of Pakistan. Many of these are national award winning and a number of these are prescribed at postgraduate level in universities.
Folk Songs, Folk Tales, Folk Romances, Epics, Folk Entertainment, Folk Poetry, Sufi Poetry, Cultural Information, Cultural Gazetteers, Surveys, Folk Classic, Oral Traditions and Rare Reprints.
The Publishing house aims to make regional folk literature available in the national language to promote greater understanding and closer fraternity amongst Pakistanis and to make cultural literature available to schools, colleges, universities and social scientists.
It would not be unjust to call Lok Virsa the cultural storehouse of literature pertaining to Pakistani traditions. Original research works in all regional languages of Pakistan along with Urdu renderings of the Regional text are published. Patronage has expanded from scholars to the general public.