Paper short abstract:

This paper presents the importance of the imagination of the sacred grove in indigenous and Adivasi India. It discusses the cultural trope of sacred groves as sophisticated local ecological knowledge, symbolic empowerment and as an indigenous model for global sustainability models.

Paper long abstract:

The notion of a sacred grove is associated with the shelter of indigenous deities or ancestors. The sacred grove often represents the forest in the village, showing a symbolic link between wilderness and social space. In the local context many Adivasi groups see themselves as the centre of a cosmogony and of the world. The re-configuration and the re-emergence of local cosmogonies reflects an indigenous awakening and empowerment through symbolic and ritual revaluation. In North East India the ancestor worship and the reconfiguration of shamanic practices prevail. This paper discusses contemporary re-emergences of autochthonous indigenous traditions venerating nature – traditions which were either forcibly criminalised, voluntarily abandoned and forgotten or which were socially marginalised. The re-emergence of the (re)-sacralisation of nature in indigenous India around the sacred grove is visible in the Sarna dharma/Sarnaism movement in Jharkhand, or through the revaluation of ancient animistic shamanic practices in Donyi-Polo movement among the Adi and the Rangshom Hum movement among the Wancho of Arunchal Pradesh. In North East India the ancestor worship and the reconfiguration of shamanic practices prevail.

All contemporary practices of indigenous eco-cosmologies are examples of re-vitalised local shamanic/ animistic traditions which re-actualise and re-value the symbolism of the soil, of the sacred grove and of the forest expressed in narratives and the re-invention of religious practices.