NOTES ON HINDUISM AND SANTAL RELIGION
THE HINDUS AND THE SANTALS
Keywords:
Santals, Religion of the Santals, Sing Bonga, the Great MountainAbstract
There are almost 422 tribes and sub-tribes in dlfferent parts of the Indian sub-continent and constitute about 8% of its total population. The Santal is a large and homogeneous tribe in India, numbering about 4 millions, (34. 12% of the total population of the division as per 1981 census reportj.! They were nomadic or semi - nomadic tribal people. But now the Santals are mainly agrarian with a
'democratic-socialistic-moralistic'temperament. It is almost impossible to etermine the exact origin of the Santals. They may be from the pre-Dravidian aborigines, Dravidian tribe, Proto-Australoid tribe etc. The Santals, are distributed in West Bengal, Northern Orissa, Bihar, Assam and also in Bangaladesh. They have been linguistically classified as Kolarians. 'Santa!' is a distorted form of 'Saontar', This name came as they sojourned for several generations in the Saont or Samantabhumi.
References
Lal Bahadur Singh, Ssntsl Youths: An Unseen Talent, New Delhi: Wisdom Publications, 1988.
Lal Bahadur Singh, op. cit., p. 4. A B Chaudhuri, The Sentels: Religion &
Rituals, New Delhi: Ashish Publishing House, 1987, p. 15. And allo A B
Chaudhuri, State formation among Trlbels: A Quest for Santal Identity, New
Delhi: Gyan Publishing House, 1993, pp. 1ff.
A B Chaudhurl, The Santals: op. cit., p, 15. And also A B Chaudhuri, Ssntal
Identity, op, cit., pp. 1ff. There are several other theories about the original
wandering of the Santa Is and their final settlement in India. Cf. Lal Bahadur
Singh. op, clt., pp. 4·5.
A B Chaudhuri. The Santa/s: op, cit., pp. 15-41.
A B Chaudhuri, Santa/ Identity, op. clt., pp. 14-46. And also Shri Pennalal
Dasgupta. "Introduction," in /n the Midst of Sentels, by Dhanapati Bag,
Calcutta: Subarnarekha. 1987, pp. 1-6.
