Religious Traditions and Cultural Confluence in India’s North-East

Abstract

India’s North-East region is home to at least two hundred ethnic communities with a rich cultural heritage. The cultural landscape presents a picture of diverse Indo-Mongoloid groups of people known as Kiratas in Sanskrit literature, who are settled in different habitats and ecological settings. The region has been a ‘melting pot’ of multi-cultural groups from mainland India and South-East Asia through various periods of its history. Among the clan-based societies, the life-style of the people largely conform to belief in spirits and ancestors. Brahmanical ideology made a deep impact on the history and culture of the people, particularly in the valleys of Assam and Manipur. The process of acculturation of the tribal and non-tribal is also the result of interaction with the tenets of Islam, Buddhism and Christianity. This study seeks to explore the myriad religious traditions of North-East India and the resultant vibrant cultural confluence from a historical perspective. It will gain insights into the ways in which the people have accommodated the new belief systems within the larger framework of their traditional religion-cultural practices.