Place · Santhal sacred hill · India
Lugu Buru
Also known as Lugu Buru, Marang Buru, Ghantabari, Santhal sacred hill
A hill in the Bokaro district that Santhal tradition holds to be where Marang Buru, the great mountain spirit, first gave the Santhal their social and religious order — in effect the origin place of Santhal religion, and the site of the Lugu Buru Ghantabari Dharam Gar assembly each January.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 23.750, 85.850
Worth knowing
Tens of thousands come from Jharkhand, Odisha, Bengal and Assam for it, and the gathering functions as a religious assembly and a Santhal cultural parliament at once, with resolutions passed on language, script and land. An Adivasi tradition with a named origin place and an annual legislature is not what the anthropology of the nineteenth century described.
Connections (1)
- Shared sacred geographySidhu Murmu
Lugu Buru is where Santhal tradition places the origin of Santhal religion and social order, and Bhognadih is where Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu declared the Hul in 1855. The January assembly at Lugu Buru now passes resolutions on language, script and land, so the same community has a named origin place, a rebellion memorial and an annual parliament within a hundred kilometres.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Lugu Buru”. W.G. Archer, The Hill of Flutes: Life, Love and Poetry in Tribal India (1974); Santhal Sarna committee records of the Ghantabari assembly.
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