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© Kamla-Raj 2004 Stud. Tribes Tribals, 2(2): 81-87 (2004)
Kora Religious Belief: A Fusion of Traditional Tribal Faith and Hinduism
Kakali Paul (Mitra)
Palli Charcha Kendra, Visva-Bharati University, Sriniketan 731 236, Birbhum, West Bengal, India
KEYWORDS Spirit; animism; Hinduism; sacrifice; ritual
ABSTRACT In West Bengal Koras are migrated from their original home land Bihar and found to maintain their existence in the threshold of Hinduism. They develop stable dependent economic ties and culture contact with the Hindus. Gradually they aspire for a corporate status in the caste hierarchy by adopting some sanskritic rituals and try to prove that they are not far away from the Hindus. On the other hand they retain their original tribal spiritual belief; persist the idea of bhut (spirit of the dead), animistic belief, and worshiping traditional deities of hills, earths etc. They remember and make its use while worshiping their deities. They are however, standing on the bridge between orthodox Hindu religion and the ideal traditional tribal religious belief, sometimes which may be the witness of the fusion of these two. In the present study, an attempt has been made to grasp the nature of belief of the Koras in supernatural powers to understand their world view and of the mechanisms they have adopted to regulate the relationships with their visible, invisible and unexplainable worlds around them. Focus has also been made on the world of dynamic isolation they maintain even after their long term aspiration for complete integration with Hindu religion.
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