Synopsis Tradition and Terrain is an attempt to map out the emergence of an aesthetic awareness in terms of the land, region and creative consciousness. The essays trace the presence of adbhuta rasa as an the aesthic of wonder, formulate a critique of ceremony, and reach beyond the phenomenal into the innermost possibilities of ecological wisdom and alter/native discourses, even while reconstructing a poetics of bhakti in the context of India tradition. Although written variously in diverse contexts and situations these essays evidence the manifold concerns of the Indian creative/critical psyche. As a cultural past is resuscitated through individual texts as well as collective efforts through different genres and categories, what emerges still continues to share a relevance and positive edge while remaining imaginatively powerful and creatively fertile. This book is bound to be of interest both to the casual reader and the academic scholar. These essays have been published earlier in: Chandrabhaga, Literary Criterion, Pondicherry university Studies in Humanities and Social Science, Literary Half-Yearly, Indian Literature, LittCrit, revaluations, Samyukta, and Summerhill.