Nowadays the concept of animism experiences a period of a certain ‘revival’. Over the last decade several approaches towards the usage and application of the term have been developed. In India the term ‘animism’ was a part of the social and political distinction between ‘tribe’ / ‘caste’ (fixed in colonial Census of India, and still in use), ‘non-Aryan’ / ‘Aryan’, ‘non-brahmanical’ / ‘brahmanical’ etc. In this paper I question whether there is any kind of ethnographic reality beyond the definition of animism in contemporary India. What kind of practices in particular communities can ‘justify’ the statement of their members ‘being an animist’? Is it possible to make a distinction between a ‘Hindu’ and an ‘animist’ on the basis of anything other than just a statement? Spirit-possession is a widespread reality which is not necessarily connected to animism in any of its given interpretations. However, an aspect of fluidity and formlessness of soul/spirit and a practice of arriving of a deity/spirit/soul/etc. into a human body are very important for the agenda of animism and shamanism. I am drawing attention to the sacred institutions of two very distant places in contemporary India – Manipur and Tulunadu – as the examples of preserving very specific local religious traditions along with indigenous languages and peculiar social set-ups. Both have a strong animistic character, and both are the traditions of invocation of deities, who are formless and do not have constant image or idol (murti). Both have a very strong connection to a particular locus and ethnic and social group, and – which is more important – to a specific ritualistic drama, conducted by mediums, ritualistically possessed by the spirits of the deities. I am arguing that the idea of personality seems to be very important here, and an ontology of animism based on the phenomenon of an unstable soul created by the many contexts, is fused with many other outlooks – Hindu, Christian or else. Worshiping of local formless deities, like in lai-haraoba of Meitei of Manipur, or daiva-aradhane of the Tulu-speaking people of South Karnataka and North Kerala, can serve as two examples of animism with a positively interpreted spirit-possession in slightly ‘Hinduised’ societies and religious cultures of border localities of India.
Keywords: animism, spirit-possession, India, deities, worship, lai-haraoba [festival], daiva-aradhane [daiva worship].
