Drawing on the Legacy of ‘Demon’ Ancestors - the Asurs, a PVTG

Following on from the previous section which describes the consensus building process amongst tribals that is leading up to the demand for a Dharam Code, as well as the deploy­ment of eco-religious discourses in this regard, I now present a case of tribal religiosity which too is showcasing its difference from Hinduism in a highly visible way, but which would find itself at odds with the consensus that is being generated around how tribal religiosity should be defined.

The Asurs are mentioned in the myths and oral epics of other tribes. One of these is the ‘Asur Kahani’, a Munda oral epic (the Mundas are one of the largest Indian tribes) in which the Asurs are described as a race of mighty iron-smelters who were punished by the tribal Sun God, Singbonga, for the mass ecological destruction that their traditional iron-smelting craft had caused. In it, the sun god Singbonga is depicted as being troubled in heaven by the heat produced by the Asurs’ iron-smelting furnaces. The animals and birds on Earth are also complaining of the heat. They try to appeal to Singbonga to intercede on their behalf with the Asurs. Singbonga makes several failed attempts to convince the Asurs to limit their production of iron. Finally, he decides to punish them. He incarnates as a young boy who is adopted by an old Munda couple. At a juncture when the Asurs believe their reserves of iron ore to have been depleted (this depletion of ore is Singbonga’s doing), Singbonga leads them to believe that only by a human sacrifice will the desperate situation of the Asurs be remedied.

This he does and emerges unscathed and laden with gold and jewels. He then tells the Asur men, that he, being merely a boy, was the recipient of this great wealth - and that they, if they chose to be sacrificed, would amass far more. The Asur men then enter the furnace and Singbonga instructs the Asur women to blow the bellows. This they do, but when the furnace is opened, all that is found is death. The Asur women then lament and bewail their situation. They clutch Singbonga (who has now assumed his true form) as he ascends to heaven and implore him to provide them with means of subsistence. Singbonga subse­quently flings them onto the earth, where they are transformed into the spirits that the trib­als understand to inhabit the land and forests, and instructs them to trouble the Mundas, who would then make them offerings, in order to propitiate them - by which they would be provided for (Hoffmann & Emelen 1990: 1648-1658). This can, therefore, also be called a story of the creation of some of the sacred natural sites worshipped by the Mundas and the Oraons with whom they live (see Roy 1915). Indeed, it has been reported that tribes in east-central India believe that the Asur women’s spirits inhabit their land and require propitiation (Hoffmann & Emelen 1990:1658). There are in fact ruins of iron-smelting furnaces found across the fields of the villages of Jharkhand in east-central India, which are attributed by the Munda people to these very same Asurs of yore (Roy 1926:147-152). Radiocarbon dating of some of the artefacts found at these sites dates them to 20 BC and 100 AD (Ghosh 2008). Nevertheless, whatever would be their actual history, the Asuras trace their genealogical descent from the Asuras or demons of Hindu mythology - and the theme of the importance of nomenclature finds relevance here once again.

The Asurs worship the gods of the Hindu pantheon as well as Singbonga and various spirits of the local environment; they mention, in the context of their religiosity, the names of most of the deities venerated in a traditional Hindu home. This may well be a symptom of the Hinduisation/Sanskritisation process to which the tribals of central India are known to be subject (Thapar 1977:49-50). However, the Asuras are most emphatic about the fact that these are the gods of their ancestors. It is extremely interesting that the Asuras claim to worship Ravana, the famous demonic Asura king of the Indian epic, the Ramayana, whom they refer to as Dasmurhiya, as well as Mahishasur (the great buffalo-demon killed by Durga), Kumbhakaran, Danasur, and such other demonic characters mentioned in ancient Indian literature that bear the appellation Asura (Vyas 1994). As per their conceptualisa­tions, these so-called demonic characters were mighty and powerful people of ancient times, and their ancestors. They claim to worship Ravana with the sacrifice of a bull and say that they observe mourning on the day of Dusshera, when his effigy is burnt; this is opposed to the general celebration of his death by the vast majority of the Hindu castes. They also insist that Shiva, whom they worship as Mahadeo (great god), is an Asura (Fieldwork Notes 2007)⁶. Worship of Shiva among the Asurs has been recorded by K. K. Leuva (1963), who was, according to the Asurs he interviewed, “worshipped in the past with human sacri­fice, which is now represented by the effigies of human beings” (Leuva 1963:160). In their understanding, many Hindu gods were Asuras and their mythical ancestors. They men­tioned among them Kali, Durga, Krishna, Parvati, and Hanuman. Verrier Elwin also depicts instances of the Agarias worshipping “tribal gods or demons, who are clearly associated with the ancient Asura, such as Lohasur (whose name does not occur in Sanskrit literature), Koelasur and Agyasur” (Elwin 1942: 2).

In Vedic literature, the term Asura was initially one of praise and was indeed used as a generic name for various gods, such as Varuna, Agni, Savitr, and Rudra/Shiva (Banerji- Shastri 1926:123-124). In the earliest Vedic texts, Indra too is referred to as an Asuras, though in the later Vedic texts he is depicted as the king of the Devas with whom the Asuras continuously clash (Hale 1999). In the Brahmanic tradition the Asura are stated to be the elders to the Deva (Mishra 1987:233). The eternal conflict between the Asuras and the Devas is depicted in the earliest accounts, with descriptions of the Deva achieving victory by artifice, after initial defeat at the hands of the Asuras (Mishra 1987:232).

The Asurs’ worship of Mahishasur (the demon killed by the Hindu Goddess Durga) is a point of clash with the politicised versions of Hinduism that are current and was even contested by the Education Minister of India (Sen 2019). Despite this and perhaps because of it, the worship of Mahishasur has become a rallying cry for dissidents and those margin­alised by mainstream Hinduism, which is the ideology that the ruling party at the central level in India reflects. The Asuras have a complex relationship with Hinduism and indeed contest many of its narratives, including via an alternative epic tradition (see Borde 2012). For these reasons, the inclusion of their religiosity into what is being constructed as an eco­logical tribal religion that is distinct from Hinduism is likely to prove difficult. It would be important to guard against situations in which the previously mentioned on-going consen­sus building exercise aimed at gaining recognition for an Indian tribal religion, turns into an assimilatory process by which the diversity of tribal religiosities is negated in favour of a monolithic narrative that might have more political efficacy.

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