Infusion ofHinduism and Bonda Religion into One Another
In the Bonda religion, there are many generic references to God and specific names of gods as found in the mainstream Hinduism1.
There are examples of similar names and concepts between the two religions in Ray’s The Primal Land.
Some of them are as follows: “Bhagban” (p. 26), a general reference to God; “Bata Debta”(p. 83), the god who resides in the banyan tree at the entrance of the Bonda village, similar to the ‘kaval deivams,’ in Tamil Nadu, who guard the villages at the entrance and are worshipped by the villagers; “Lachhmi” (p. 50), the goddess of fortune, spelt as “Lakshmi” elsewhere (p. 122) in the text; “Yama” (p. 72), the god of death; “Jama dutas” (p. 278), messengers of the god of death; and “Shiva” (p.1 and p. 106), the Supreme God. Interestingly, the Bondas consider Thursday as the sacred day for Goddess Lakshmi, a belief in Odisha, though in some other parts of India, people believe it is Friday. The malevolent forces are represented by “Sani”, the planet Saturn (p. 148) and “brahma rakshas” (p.14). Though the Hindus believe in the periodical seven-and-a-half-year influence of Sani bhagvan in everyone’s life, they also believe that Sani during the last two-and-a-half-year period of its influence bestows all good fortunes. As in the Hindu rituals, the Bondas also use mango leaves, rice and turmeric powder for auspicious occasions such as house warming and the ritual of becoming “maitarbais” (pp. 83-84).There is also a fascinating, yet disturbing complaint by Mangla Dhangramajhi and other Bondas who have gone to school, as to how Lord Jagannath, the dark tribal god, was stolen from a tribal chief and consecrated in Puri temple hundreds of years ago, and presently the city dwellers have made a flourishing trade of it, such that, the tribals who were the original worshippers of Lord Jagannath have to pay money to have a darshan of Him (Ray 2001:230).
Ray makes it clear that the Bondas do not accept any foreign god or religion easily.
She portrays the resistance and questioning of the Bondas whenever a foreign god is introduced. Thus, when the Christian missionaries build a church, the Bondas drive them away and capture it (Ray 2001:85); when someone tells them that they are Hindus, Soma Muduli retorts that they are not Hindus but they are remos and have their own gods; again, when they are told that it is alright if they eat the flesh of cows, but should never eat pigs and should pray to only one god, the Bondas tell them to their face that the outsiders have no business to instruct whom the Bondas should worship (Ray 2001:92). When Bagha Bindu brings the faded picture of the god Ishwar, they put it to test by placing it on the sindbore to check whether it gets blown away by the wind over night or not. But their attitude changes when their repeated attempts to break the different parts of the gulang babus’ goddess Ma’s statue (which represents Sarkar) fail. Slowly, they begin to accept the goddess and start offering Her the green branch of a tree as they do to their Ma Takrani. The new goddess becomes an addition to the already existing pantheon of Bonda deities (Ray 2001:199-200).The book Ethnographic Atlas of Indian Tribes sums up: “The Bondas are primarily animistic. At the same time, they are also Hinduistic. But they go against some of the strict norms of Hindu religion, like consumption of beef” (Singh 2018:263).
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