Barahmasa

Barahmasa (lit. "the twelve months") is a poetic genre popular in the Indian subcontinent derived primarily from the Indian folk tradition. It is usually themed around a woman longing for her absent lover or husband, describing her own emotional state against the backdrop of passing seasonal and ritual events. The progression of months (according to the Hindu lunar calendar) is a fundamental component of the genre, but the number of months is not necessarily barah (Hindi: बारह, Urdu: بارہ) or "twelve" as similar poetic forms known as chaumasas, chaymasas and ashtamasas (cycles of four, six, and eight months, respectively) also exist in the same lineage of folk traditions.

Although originally an oral tradition, the genre was incorporated into longer poems, epics and narratives by a number of Indian poets across major Modern Indo-Aryan languages including—Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Rajasthani languages, Bihari languages, Punjabi etc., and can be found in the folk poetry of the tribal people too.