Svetlana Ryzhakova
Dr.hab.hist., ethnographer
Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology,
Russian Academy of Science
32A, Leninsky prospect, Moscow,
119991, Russian Federation
e-mail: SRyzhakova@gmail.com
Welcomed and unwanted: uncertainty in spirit-possession practice.
Cases of Manasa worship in North Bengal and Assam, India.
Possession caused by deities, spirits or ghosts, spontaneous or enacted, play significant role in many rituals and rites of local and often marginal religious practices in India. Two mechanisms, exorcism and adorcism, deal with the invisible possible visitors of human bodies. Usually they are community and/or place-specific. Yet some features could be pointed as to be common for the whole South Asia, and one of them seems to be a certain relation of snake worship to spirit-possession practice.
The story of goddess Manasa (Bishohori, Padma, etc.) is one of the best examples of charging with dangerous divine power, which generates insecurity and uncertainty, but at the same time rewards adepts by wonderful abilities. Manasa is a very important goddess for the both caste Hindus of Bengal and Assam, as well as for Bodo. She is the main goddess for the majority of Rajbansis. According to a myth, Manasa is a snake and a marginal daughter of Shiva; her life-story is a struggle for an overcoming of her marginality, justification of her divine status and establishing (often violently) connection with devotees. Fluid border between deities, witches and human beings is an essential part of her both myth and cult. Being a tantric deity, Manasa has an extremely ambivalent character; according to the narratives and ritualistic practice she at the same time is welcomed and unwanted.
This paper is based on my ethnographic fieldwork conducted in rural places of Jalpaiguri, Koch-Behar, Goalpara and Darrang districts of West Bengal and Assam, India, among Rajbansis, Bodo Kachari and Assamees. The details of Bishohori puja, Behula natch and storytelling by Monosha gidal and in a form of suknani ojapalli (with dance and trance of deodhani) will unfold a peculiar local knowledge system, directly aimed to overcoming and transformation of mundane life crises.
Acknowledgement
I must express my deep gratitude to my dear friends and colleagues, Dinesh and Dipti Roy (Mainaguri), Dilip and Ranjana Barma (Jalpaiguri), Lopa Das (Guwahati) and Purabi Baruah (Tezpur) who helped me to do fieldworks and with whom I discussed not only Manasa’s issue, but also many other important instances in ethnography a folklore matters of North Bengal and Assam.
The paper is prepared in the frame of research project of Svetlana Ryzhakova in Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Science. Since 2018 the fieldwork material was collected in frame of her project “Possession, devotion, performance: borders and interconnections of personal self-possession, worship and artistic experience in Indian artistic traditions”, supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Researches (№ 18-09-00389).