The Santal Tribe: An Insight into Their Religious World

The Santals are one of India’s largest tribal communities, with a population exceeding six million spread across Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, and Tripura. Their religious life is not a set of abstract doctrines – it is a living, breathing system woven into every aspect of daily existence, from the first sowing of seeds to the last rites of the dead. At the heart of this system sits a supreme creator, a vast court of spirits, a sacred grove at the edge of every village, and a culture of communal joy that finds expression in song, dance, and collective worship.

Thakur Jiu: the supreme creator and sustainer 🔗

Preeminent in the Santal religious pantheon is Thakur Jiu – also called Sin Bonga or Dharam – regarded as the Creator and Preserver of the entire universe. The name itself carries theological weight: Thakur signals lordship and ownership over all things, while jiu denotes the divine life-force or spirit. Together, the name communicates a God who is both transcendent creator and intimate sustainer.

What makes Thakur Jiu theologically distinctive is that he is a benevolent deity who receives no specific dedicated worship, yet is remembered and invoked at every religious festival and important social occasion. He is not approached through a temple or idol – Santal religion traditionally had neither temples nor idol worship. Instead, Thakur Jiu occupies the supreme position precisely because he transcends the need for ritual appeasement. He is called upon especially during famines and droughts, when white fowl are sacrificed in his name.

Santal creation mythology reflects this understanding deeply. According to Santal oral tradition, in the beginning there was only water, and Thakur Jiu felt the impulse of creation – bringing forth earth, animals, and ultimately human beings, into whom he breathed the life-force. This myth positions Thakur Jiu as the “cause of all causes,” making Santal religion, as scholars have noted, both monotheistic and pantheistic in its deepest philosophical character.

The bonga: a court of spirits governing the world 🔗

Beneath Thakur Jiu operates an intricate world of spirits known as bonga. The word itself simply means a supernatural force in the world and carries no inherent connotation of good or evil. The bonga are intermediaries between noa puri (the visible world) and hana puri (the invisible reality) – the spiritual dimension that underlies all physical existence. They handle different aspects of the world and are approached through prayers, offerings, and sacrifice.

Scholars estimate the number of bongas recognized by the Santals at between 150 and 180, organized into distinct categories. The most powerful and universally revered is Maran Buru – literally the “Great Mountain” – who is propitiated at all festivals through the sacrifice of a white fowl or a white goat, accompanied by offerings of rice-beer. Maran Buru is identified with both beneficent and protective forces and is worshipped by the village priest on behalf of the entire community.

Other important bongas include Moreko-Turuiko, the village deity invoked for welfare, rainfall, and protection from epidemics; Jaher Era, the presiding goddess of the sacred grove; and Gosae Era, a benevolent spirit associated with the community’s health and cattle. These benevolent spirits operate at the village, household, ancestor, and sub-clan levels, while a separate class of malevolent spirits – inhabiting boundaries, forests, mountains, and water – can cause disease and misfortune, and are handled not by the village priest but by a specialist healer.

The living and the dead: ancestors as bongas 🔗

One of the most philosophically rich aspects of Santal belief is the treatment of the dead. The Santals believe that their understanding of community includes both the living and the dead – the departed are never considered outside the community but are commemorated with reverence, with the hope of eventual reunion. Through a specific process of post-mortem ritual, deceased ancestors can themselves become bongas, taking on a protective role for the family and clan. This transforms death not into an ending but into a transition into spiritual guardianship.

The jaherthan: sacred grove as spiritual nucleus 🔗

Every Santal village has one defining sacred space: the jaherthan, or sacred grove. The jaherthan is a consecrated worship site typically located on the outskirts of the village, where village bongas are believed to reside and where the principal annual festivals take place. The grove is designated at the time the village is founded and remains undisturbed except during ritual occasions. Inside, a series of natural, uncut stones serve as representations of the bongas during festival rituals.

The jaherthan is the most auspicious sacred space in Santal life – the preeminent site of interaction between the community and the supernatural world. Notably, since no two villages share the same sacred grove, the jaherthan serves as an important cultural and religious identity-marker – a way of determining village membership and community belonging. So central is it to Santal identity that when Santals migrate and settle in a new location, constructing a new jaherthan is one of the first communal tasks they undertake.

The role of the naeke and the ojha 🔗

Ritual life at the jaherthan is presided over by two key religious figures. The naeke (village priest) is responsible for all ceremonies connected with the festivals and agricultural cycle – he consecrates offerings, performs animal sacrifices, and propitiates the principal bongas on behalf of the entire community. The naeke and his wife are symbolically identified with the original Santal couple, giving the priestly role a foundational mythological significance. The ojha, by contrast, is a healer and diviner – responsible for driving away malevolent bongas, diagnosing disease, preparing medicines from plants, and performing exorcism. The two roles are distinct: the naeke maintains harmony with the benevolent spirits, while the ojha confronts forces of disruption and illness.

Agriculture, life-cycle events, and the rhythm of ritual 🔗

Santal religious life follows the rhythm of the agricultural year. A yearly round of rituals connected with the agricultural cycle, along with life-cycle rituals for birth, marriage, and burial, involves petitions to the spirits and offerings that typically include the sacrifice of birds. The calendar of worship is not arbitrary – it mirrors the community’s dependence on the land and the spirits believed to govern its fertility.

The spirits of the jaherthan are worshipped by sacrificial offerings during the principal festivals: Sohrae (the harvest festival), Baha (the flower festival), Erok’ Sim (the sowing festival), Hariar Sim (the sprouting festival), and Janthar (the first fruits festival). Each of these corresponds to a moment in the agricultural calendar where human effort meets spiritual dependency – where the community formally acknowledges that their survival is intertwined with the goodwill of the bongas.

Life-cycle events are equally governed by ritual. Birth is accompanied by prayers to household bongas for the newborn’s protection. Marriage ceremonies involve seeking the blessing of the spirits for harmony and prosperity. Death rituals ensure that the deceased’s soul transitions properly, and are accompanied by community participation in mourning. The Santals’ attitude toward the bongas in all these moments is one of awe, reverential dependence, and careful propitiation – their present and future considered almost entirely dependent on maintaining right relations with the spirit world.

Raska: the joy at the heart of Santal festivals 🔗

Santal religious life is not solemn or austere – it is fundamentally joyful. The term raska (sometimes spelled rosko) captures this spirit: it refers to the joy, abundance, and communal delight that characterizes Santal festivals and rituals. The Baha festival, for instance, embodies raska and deep respect for nature – it marks the arrival of new flowers and fruits and celebrates fertility, growth, and community protection.

Festivals are participatory events that blend the sacred and the celebratory without contradiction. Santal festivals are associated with performative practices of songs, dance, and sets of musical instruments – the tamak’ drum, the tumdak’, and the flute all have established roles in religious celebration. Santal dance and music traditionally revolve around religious celebrations, meaning that artistic expression and worship are not separate domains but expressions of the same devotional impulse.

Santal festivals come in two types: family festivals, where relatives gather at the home, and social festivals, where the entire village assembles at the jaherthan. Together, these festivals reinforce solidarity within families and across the community. They are also ecologically significant – the sacred groves and the rituals performed within them serve as a means of preserving local biodiversity, embedding conservation within the structure of religious life.

A religion without walls 🔗

What emerges from the Santal religious world is a system that refuses the separation between the sacred and the everyday. For the Santals, religion is not confined to temples or doctrines – it lives in their fields, forests, and daily acts of survival. Every ritual, from grand communal sacrifices to quiet household offerings, is an expression of the community’s relationship with the invisible forces that permeate existence.

The theological structure is layered but coherent: Thakur Jiu as the ultimate, unapproachable creator; the bonga as active intermediaries who govern specific domains of life; and the community – living and ancestral – as participants in an ongoing negotiation with the spiritual world. This emphasis on nature, communal harmony, and ancestral reverence offers an alternative perspective on spirituality that academic and philosophical study increasingly recognizes as a sophisticated response to the human condition.

The Santal religious world is also under pressure. Urbanization, Hindu influence, and Christian missionary activity have all left their marks on the community’s beliefs and practices. Yet the core of Santal spirituality – the bongas, the jaherthan, the agricultural rituals, and the joy of raska – continues to hold communities together across generations, demonstrating the enduring power of a religion rooted in place, relationship, and the rhythms of the natural world.

What do you think? If a religion has no temples, no written scripture, and no singular founding prophet – yet sustains millions of people across centuries – what does that tell us about what religion fundamentally is? And in an age of rapid modernization, can the ecological wisdom embedded in practices like the jaherthan offer something meaningful to the wider world?

References

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