Tharus are genetically, culturally and racially the sons of Buddha – Subodh Kumar Singh

Continuing with the series of interviews with researchers and scholars studying about the Tharus, Voice of Tharus spoke with Subodh Kumar Singh, an eminent Tharu scholar currently residing in the USA with his family. 

Subodh Kumar Singh

Subodh stands tall among Tharu researchers with his noted books The Great sons of the Tharus: Sakyamuni Buddha and Ashoka the Great, The Return of the Mauryas and Community that Changed Asia. Having served as a political analyst with the US Embassy in Nepal, he followed the footsteps of his father Ramananda Prasad Singh whose The Real Story of the Tharus brought forth the glorious history of the Tharus.

Voice of Tharus (VOT):  Welcome to Voice of Tharus. You have carved a niche among Tharu scholars and worked towards telling the world that Tharus are sons of Buddha. Can you please tell our readers how did you research on this theme?

Subodh Kumar Singh (SKS): I was really enthusiastic to know about the real history of the Tharu community as I was desperately searching for my identity. I was no doubt very much impacted by my father's (Ramananda P. Singh) earlier research on the Tharu people. 

I started doing research on the culture and traditions of the Buddha's clan of the ancient past and it revealed that the rites and rituals practised by the Shakyas and Koliyas of Kapilvastu and Devadaha exactly matched with customs and traditions of the enigmatic Tharus – right from birth to death.

An Indian scholar had rightly said that the culture is what remains after you have forgotten all that you set out to learn. The clan of the Buddha followed Theravada and thus came to be known as the Tharu of today. I found out through my research that the Tharus are genetically, culturally and racially the sons of the enlightened Buddha. The native Tharus of the lowland Nepal Terai are a mixed community predominantly of Mongoloid extraction.

VOT: You have written three books on Tharus and their history. Can you share with our readers what the books talk about?

SKS: The book The Great Sons of the Tharus: Sakyamuni Buddha and Asoka the Great talks about the origin of the Tharus. It explains why the modern Tharus are the descendants of the Shakyas and Koliyas of the ancient world. It highlights the rites and rituals of the Tharu community which exactly matches with the Buddha's clan. It talks about malaria and why Tharus are immune to it. It talks about the migration of Shakyas and Koliyas to the Kathmandu Valley and that the valley was named as Koligram, the settlement of the celebrated Koliyas of the Yasodhara's clan.

The second book The Return of the Mauryas mentions about the Shakya Mauryas of the Terai.  It explains how the descendants of Emperor Ashok re-emerged as a formidable force in the Gangetic plain, and even had swayed over Nepalmandal (Kathmandu Valley). It also states why the Nepal Terai is known as "Tharuhat". 

The third book Community that Changed Asia talks about the mythical Aryan Race theory and how it was used as a tool by the Europeans to divide and rule the people of the Indian sub-continent. It also highlights the similarities between Tharu and Burmese culture.  It tells about the Shakyas and Koliyas migrating to the Arkansas (Burma) to establish their own kingdom. Burmese Kings' claim of being of the Shakyamuni's clan, according to Buddhist literature books, is factually accurate.

VOT: The Tharu youths are now more informed about their history. Do you see the advent of social media as a major factor in raising awareness? How do you think a wider mass can be educated on this?

SKS: The advent of social media has indeed played a significant role in raising awareness among the youths. The Tharuhat based FM radio can equally play a vital role in spreading and educating the general mass about the Tharu's history and their great legacy.

VOT: What is your view about the young Tharus? How can they be inspired and encouraged to dig their roots and research about Tharu origins?

SKS: This is the opportune time for the Tharu youths to start doing research about their glorious past, as the politics of identity has emerged in Nepali politics and this has created enthusiasm and awareness among the Tharu youths.

VOT: What is your advice to Tharus and scholars interested on researching about Tharu origin, culture and tradition?

SKS: I would simply say that you need to start researching about your culture, customs and traditions by going to the Terai because the state sponsored textbooks are not going to be of any help. You need to comparatively study the cultures and traditions of other communities living in the Terai and that will help you to understand your own culture in a vivid manner. You will definitely have to study the ancient history of the Terai region and also of South Asia to really understand the ancient Tharu community that helped to change Asia.

VOT: Are you continuing with your research and writing? Can you share with us your future plans?

SKS: I am still engaged in my research work and will continue to do so.  I really don't have any future plan as such.

Tharus were negatively impacted by the massive migration from the hills – Arjun Guneratne

Arjun Guneratne (screenshot of his YouTube interview) (c) Earth Day Revival

Arjun Guneratne, a socio-cultural anthropologist, is no new name to Tharus and followers of research on Tharus. He is the front-runner foreign researcher on Tharus along with Gisele Krauskopff, Chris McDonaugh, Ulrike Muller-Boker, Kurt Meyer and Pamela Deuel.

His research in Nepal on the emergence of an ethnic identity among the Tharus of Nepal and its relationship to processes of state formation has led to a number of published articles and a book, Many Tongues, One People: The Making of Tharu Identity in Nepal, published by Cornell University Press in 2002.

Arjun is Professor of Anthropology and Director of Asian Studies at Macalester College’s Department of Anthropology.

Sanjib Chaudhary from the Voice of Tharus spoke to Arjun about his research and future plans. Here’s the excerpt of the interview.


Voice of Tharus (VOT): Welcome to Voice of Tharus. You have carved a niche among scholars researching on Tharus and their history. Can you please tell our readers a bit about your research?

Arjun Guneratne (AG): When I started in the field of Nepal Studies about 26 years ago, my main interest was in how ethnic identities were formed and the relationship of that process to state formation. I was interested in this process in both Sri Lanka and Nepal, but chose to study it in Nepal because I believed (and still do) that one cannot learn to be a good anthropologist until one has come to understand a society very different from one’s own.

My interests have developed in the years since, and I am now focusing on environmental anthropology and the history of science. I’ve edited a book of papers by a number of scholars discussing how different communities in the Himalayan region conceptualise the environment, and I am currently working on a book about the development of ornithology in Sri Lanka. That’s my history of science project.

VOT: Why did you choose to research on Tharus? Can you cite any anecdote?

AG: Actually, I wanted at first to do research in Myanmar, but abandoned the idea when it became clear that I wouldn’t be allowed by the government there to do the kind of social science research I had in mind. I turned to Nepal as another interesting country in the South Asian region (I was mostly exposed to Buddhism growing up, so perhaps that had something to do with it). When I started reading up on Nepal I discovered that all the foreign scholars were writing about the mountains and their people but the Tarai was being largely ignored—not just by foreign scholars, but even the Nepali ones.

I thought there was more scope to say something original there, so I began to focus on the Tarai and discovered the very scanty literature about the Tharus (this was the 1980s).  There were only three scholars, all anthropologists, who had written anything about Tharus in Nepal in contemporary times: Gisele Krauskopff and Chris McDonaugh, both Europeans, and the Nepali scholar Drone Rajaure. Most everything else had been written in the 19th and early 20th centuries by British colonial officials on the Tharus of their side of the border, except for a book on the Rana Tharu by an Indian anthropologist named S.K. Srivastava. Reading this material made me very interested in the Tharus and I ended up doing research in Chitwan, but I travelled all over the Tarai from there.

VOT: Your book Many Tongues, One People: The Making of Tharu Identity in Nepal is considered one of the milestones in Tharu research. Can you share a bit about the book, its content and how it materialised?

AG: My original research on the Tharus focused on how they came to see themselves as a single ethnic group, even though historically, the different groups of Tharus living in the Tarai thought of themselves as different people and didn’t intermarry. I discovered that this process of identity formation had a lot to do with the policies promoted by the Nepali state with respect to “national integration” on the one hand and the development of the Tarai on the other. Identity formation was a project pursued by the upper echelons of Tharu society, which became more mobile (both spatially and socially) as the Tarai was developed, and as Tharus were negatively impacted by the massive migration from the hills to the plains that took place after the eradication of malaria.

My book, Many Tongues, One People (the title captures the central conundrum I was trying to explain) describes all this, but in addition, I have written on other aspects of, specifically, the lives of the Tharu people of Chitwan. The book is based in part on the work I did for my PhD dissertation at the University of Chicago, but includes a lot of additional fieldwork conducted during the early 1990s. There’s a lot of material on the culture of the Chitwan Tharus in the dissertation that didn’t make it into the book. And my wife, Katherine, has written about her experiences of living in a Tharu village in Chitwan in her book, In the Circle of the Dance.

VOT: What is your view about the young Tharus? How can they be inspired and encouraged to dig their roots and research about Tharu origins?

AG: Many of them are in fact researching their origins. I was impressed by the extent of the activism I discovered among young Tharus when I was doing my initial research; many of them had started organisations and some were publishing magazines and pamphlets, and a few went on to pursue graduate education.

The Tharu Culture Museum in Bachhauli, Chitwan is entirely the work of young people in Chitwan, who have taken the initiative, in the context of rapid social and cultural change, to preserve the artifacts of their past and explain them to the new generation of Tharus as well as to other Nepalis and to foreigners. Perhaps people in other districts might do similar things, or perhaps the Bachhauli museum could be expanded and become a national museum to preserve artifacts of Tharu society and culture from all over the Tarai.

VOT: What is your advice to Tharus and scholars interested on researching about Tharu origin, culture and tradition?

AG: Just do it! And don’t stop with the Tharus; study the whole Tarai and the inter-relations of all the different peoples who live there.

One thing I might add is that throughout the Tarai there are organisations of Tharus putting out publications about their culture, history and society, but there is no way for someone interested in this material to access it conveniently. Often, much of it is eventually lost. It would be a good idea if it could be collected and preserved in some central place or places — perhaps a national or university library in Kathmandu, but also in the Tharu Culture Museum in Chitwan.

VOT: Are you continuing with your research and writing? Can you share with us your future plans?

AG: I am indeed continuing to do research, but although I still write from time to time on Tharu culture, my main focus at the moment is on Sri Lanka, the country of my birth. When the project I am working on is done, I’d like to return to work in Chitwan. I’m very interested in the knowledge people have of the natural world, and also how Chitwan Tharu society has changed over the years, for instance because of labour migration (a topic that one of my students is researching in Chitwan), and of course, there is scope for updating my book.  So there are a number of avenues for future research in Nepal open to me, all of which I find interesting and compelling.

VOT: Thank you Arjun for your valuable words and time.

For more information, visit his website and browse through his publications. 

Modernisation and acculturation are forcing the Tharus to be assimilated into the mainstream – Uday Raj

Uday Raj

Uday Raj, a researcher from Western Nepal, has discovered a historical hand-written manuscript in Tharu language. Inspired by the Tharus and their rituals, he is in the final phase of writing his book Tharu: A Revelation, Saga of Struggle and Survival that focuses on social, cultural, religious, historical aspects, and language and literature of the Tharus of mid-western development region, Nepal.

Sanjib Chaudhary from the Voice of Tharus talked to Uday Raj about his research and the forthcoming book.  

Voice of Tharus (VOT): Welcome to Voice of Tharus. You have been researching on Tharus for a long time. What inspired you to research on Tharus?

Uday Raj: I was born and brought up like a member in a Tharu village which still has majority of Tharus. So far I know I have been participating and observing rituals, worships, feast and festivals of the Tharus. There are variations in Tharu language. My mother-tongue is Nepali, but I can speak Deukhuriya Tharu dialect fluently. I think intimacy with the Tharus since childhood and their distinct traditional and cultural background tempted me to study systematically the Tharu community.

VOT: You have written books and articles on Tharus and their history. Can you share with our readers what the books and articles talk about?

Uday Raj: I have been writing about the Tharus for long. Here’s what my book has to say about the Tharus.

Tharus are one of the indigenous ethnic groups of Terai region of Nepal. It is agreed that the Tharus are the first dwellers of Dang and Deukhuri valley. They have been inhabiting where there is easy access of water, forest, and plain land for cultivation. Even today they have not crossed the Mahabharat range for settlement. Many Tharus still write 'Chaudhari' as their surname. However, Chaudhari is the title given to a land revenue collector. Tharu is the tribal name.

Tharus have different groups and clans. Morangiya, Chitwaniya, Dangaura, Desauriya, Kathariya, Rana etc. are the groups and Dahit, Ratgaiya, Satgouwa, Jaandchhabba, Ultaha, Pachhaldangiya etc. are the clans of the Tharus. Tharus, in fact, made the cultivable land in many parts of the Terai region.

Tharus sing, dance, and celebrate different festivals throughout the year. They have some unique cultural traits. They have different songs for different months, seasons, and time. Similarly, maadal (drum) is prohibited to play from Dhurheri to Hareri. Ultaha Tharu clan has opposite house structure than that of other Tharu clans. Ultaha makes the door in the north and puts the deity room (Deurhar) in the south side. Dahit clan steals vegetables once in a year for ritual worship.

Tharus are followers of animism. They have deep inter-relationship with nature and believe in supernatural power. Gurwa, a shaman or healer, performs ritual functions in individual family and the Praganna. Some Gurwas had received Lalmohar to control epidemics and dangerous wild animals in the past.

VOT:  You have discovered a historical hand-written manuscript in Tharu language and currently working on a book about Tharus. Can you tell a bit about them?

Uday Raj: Tharus have very old epics such as Barkimaar and Surkhel. Dhakher is a Tharu clan, who recites different epics of mantras on the occasion of ritual worship. Dhakher transfer the mantras orally to new generation.

Tharus draw mural paintings in their houses. Murals of different domestic as well as wild animals and birds are drawn on the wall in and outside the houses. It shows their deep faith in animals and birds. They draw mural painting of Raavana (one of the characters of the Ramayana) on the occasion of Ashtimki (the birthday of Lord Krishna) every year and worship at night.

A hand-written manuscript in Tharu language

While I was researching on Tharu scriptures, I found 'Sagun Darshan' written in Tharu language. This book, I think, is a historical hand-written manuscript. Sagun Darshan was used to find out the properties, animals, and family members that went missing or got lost from the house.

My forthcoming book 'Tharu: A Revelation, Saga of Struggle and Survival' focuses on social, cultural, religious, historical aspects, language and literature of the Tharus of mid-western development region, Nepal.

VOT: What is your view about the young Tharus? How can they be inspired and encouraged to dig their roots and research about Tharu origins?

Uday Raj: Tharus of new generation are in search of their identity. They are greatly concerned and conscious about the loss of tradition as well as culture and at the same time they are struggling for their rights and cultural protection. However, there is a trend of reform among educated Tharus. They are bringing modifications in their traditional way of life. There is still debate on the origin of the Tharus. Only mythological and verbal interpretation might not be true. That is why Tharu scholars themselves should dig out their roots and carry on with further research.

A page from the historical manuscript

VOT: What is your advice to Tharus and scholars interested on researching on Tharu origin, culture and tradition?

Uday Raj: There is a lot to be done. Modernisation and acculturation are forcing the Tharus to be assimilated into the mainstream. Tharu youths are attracted towards the new and modern lifestyle. We should encourage the youths to search and protect the Tharu identity. Tharus have rich culture. Scholars and researchers should focus to expose cultural identity and age-old tradition.

VOT: Are you continuing your research and writing? Can you share with us your future plans?

Uday Raj: I have plans to research more on the Tharus. Tharus have historical epics interconnected with Hindu story (theme) and the characters of the Ramayana, the Mahabharat, and so on. Tharu literature is rich in verse. Their typical culture and tradition are disappearing day by day.

The Terai Speaks: Giving a voice to the Tharus

Dr Charles Wagner Norris-Brown

Dr Charles Wagner Norris-Brown hails from Burlington, Vermont in the USA. An anthropologist by profession and an artist by choice, Dr Charles is working on two story books for children based on the Tharus, tigers and conservation. An admirer of Tharus and their culture, he has visited far west Nepal twice since 2011 for his project The Terai Speaks and plans to visit Nepal again this year.

Sanjib Chaudhary from Voice of Tharus spoke to Dr Charles about his project. Here’s an excerpt of the interview. 

Voice of Tharus (VOT): How did you become interested in Tharus and their culture?

Dr Charles Wagner Norris-Brown (C W Norris-Brown): My background is social anthropology, most of it done in Uttarakhand, India. Getting to that region required crossing the terai, and somewhere along the line I heard about the indigenous people living in that region. I remember setting up a meeting with some of them in 1985 in the Khatima region, and, being drawn to the kind of rugged, self-reliant people that I grew up among in northern Appalachia, I had wanted to return.

In 1999 I was trying to get a tiger conservation project started in the Corbett Park area, India, with what would become the Terai Arc Landscape Project. Seeing that I was an artist as well as an anthropologist, someone suggested that I write and illustrate children’s books.

It took twelve years to get myself together enough to return; this time to Nepal, and to the Rana Tharus of the far west. They were close to the area I already knew, and it would give me a chance to finally meet the Rana Tharus in their homeland. I arranged a visit in 2011 to finally meet them and get started on my children’s book. I learned much from those wonderful people -- and they certainly did not let me down in my expectations.

VOT: Can you tell our readers about your project The Terai Speaks?

C W Norris-Brown: Although my background was anthropology, I knew I could do much better work in providing a link between what people say and experience with the bigger world through a means other than dusty studies on academic shelves. I envisioned a project that would make me a voice for the people who have lived for ages in the terai and were an intimate part of that challenging region. This is like the voice that Native Americans could give for their land and culture, and their trials and tribulations, in the USA. The parallels are quite accurate.

Between the two times I visited the Nepal far west, I learned, and changed some of my focus (thanks to the Tharus) so that the project The Terai Speaks was to become more and more of a format to help Tharus express their role as “keepers of the terai forest”. My focus has been that they, as the indigenous people of the terai, could become the protectors of the terai jungles, parks and reserves, and this way find a way to empower them -- at least with respect to ecotourism, and such things.

From my original project description (2011): “What I hoped to produce from the visit would be based on two discourses. One, the voice of the people who have lived, worked, slept and dreamed among the jungles of the terai. Of those people, the ones who have had the most intimate contact through the ages with that environment are the Tharus. Using my anthropological interview strategy, I hoped to let them speak -- to give them the voice that we all need to hear, unrestrained by either academic confinement or officially condoned views -- the voice of the terai in both its pain and its beauty.

The strategy was to produce a series of drawings, paintings, and photographs executed firstly to document the Tharu and their milieu and secondly to provide illustrations to texts I planned to develop based on that visit. The ultimate success of this effort would be in its degree of connection with the lives of real people in the terai buffer zones. It would focus on the stories: the lives, the milieu, the thoughts and dreams of the people of the terai, the lore of the tiger, the intertwining of fates, the spirituality of wild nature and of conservation.”

So far I have written and illustrated one children’s book and another is in progress. I have also co-written “A String of Pearls” about the line of tiger reserves that make up the Terai Arc Landscape Project. I still have a dream of seeing a Tharu-based ecotourism plan take shape in a format similar to the one being managed by the Saami people of northern Sweden. This way it might be possible to help provide some funds to Tharu girls to go to school.

VOT: What is your perception about the Tharu people?

C W Norris-Brown: I would describe them as very friendly, helpful, sharing people whose traits come from their being the salt of the earth, hard-working, smart, and equitable. Seeing them in their amazingly colourful clothes and knowing them on a personal level is beyond my expectations. For me, it seems there must be a way for Tharus to empower themselves. They are some of the hardest working, socially equitable, and most enterprising people in Nepal and should be fully capable of this, in spite of the issues that divide them so much at this time, 2015.

The fact that they have been treated so poorly is beyond my comprehension, but real enough for me to say to everyone: believe in yourselves, and you will reach great heights, but do so by building on your strengths (of which there are many).

VOT: Can you share with our readers any interesting incident during your travel to Western Nepal?

C W Norris-Brown: Other than dusty, bumpy jeep rides in places that did not seem to have any kind of road, what stands out were the peaceful farming villages and the beauty of Rana Tharu women in their traditional outfits. As an indication of their friendliness, there was a wedding procession one day that everyone went down to watch. The groom was being carried in a special, closed-in seat. When they came near me, the procession stopped and the groom got out so I could take a photo of him. Everyone was happy, dancing and singing, but still took care of me. It was a wonderful feeling of being included.

One of the illustrations from his upcoming book.

VOT: You have been working on an illustrated story book for children on conservation. Can you elaborate a bit about the book?

C W Norris-Brown: There are now two books. One is to be published soon, and the other is still being written. Both are about how Tharu villagers react to a tiger entering the village during a drought. In the first book, the response to the tiger is carried out by children who go off into the jungle to find out why the tiger came to the village. There they meet with a jackal and some langurs who explain the forest and its animals and plants, and why it is so important to keep the forests healthy.

The second book builds on what a baidwan does when confronted with the same challenge. In both cases, the approach is part of what I wanted to take with “The Terai Speaks”, since it is based on what the Tharus themselves have to say and uses Tharu people in the stories.

VOT: When do you plan to visit Nepal and what are your future plans?

C W Norris-Brown: My wife and I plan to be in Nepal fairly soon (November 2015) as part of a trip to both India and Nepal. We hope to be able to visit the Tharus again, depending on the situation.
My future plans right now focus on the children’s books. It would be wonderful if I were able to help visualize the idea of a Tharu initiative along the lines of “protectors of the forests”, and which that (or in some other way) could provide funding to allow Tharu girls to continue to get an education.

VOT: Anything you would like to share with the Tharus and our readers?

C W Norris-Brown: It is tempting to have an opinion of what is going on around the constitution, but, being an outsider, it is something I should not get involved in. But I will repeat that, to me, a combination of education and the retention of progressive values is the key to great success, and knowing Tharus I will state conclusively that they are capable of reaching great heights.

There’s a great deal of prejudice and ignorance regarding Tharu people – Piers Locke

Anthropologist Piers Locke driving his elephant, Sitasma Kali. Photograph by Piers Locke. Used with permission.

Piers Locke, inspired by Mark Shand’s book Travels on My Elephant, was drawn to Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, its captive elephants and the elephant handlers for his doctoral research. A renowned social anthropologist interested in posthumanist philosophy, multispecies ethnography, and other forms of more-than-human research in the humanities and social sciences, he is not new to Nepal, Nepalis and especially Tharus.

Sanjib Chaudhary from Voice of Tharus spoke to Dr Locke about his research and his perception about the Tharu elephant handlers. Here’s an excerpt of the interview.

Voice of Tharus (VOT): How did you become interested in elephant management and particularly in Nepal?

Piers Locke (PL): After an undergraduate degree in Social Anthropology at the University of Kent I had decided I wanted to become an anthropologist. I had already visited India, and was drawn to specialise in South Asia. Consequently, I took a masters’ degree in South Asian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. It was there that I found inspiration for my doctoral research in Mark Shand’s book Travels on My Elephant. It seemed to me that the skilled practices of the mahout would make for an excellent topic of inquiry. I decided the Chitwan National Park would be an ideal location since captive elephants play a key role in park management, biodiversity conservation, and ecotourism.

VOT: How did you come across Tharu elephant handlers? Since not many Tharu elephant handlers speak English how did you manage to communicate with them?

PL: The first elephant handlers I met were at the Biodiversity Conservation Centre (BCC) in Sauraha, run by the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC). I first met a Tharu mahout named Narayan, but we conversed in Nepali, which I had begun learning at SOAS. This was the language I used throughout my research. The most important person for my research was Rameshwor Chaudhary, the adhikrit subba, the chief of the government elephant section, a Tharu man with many years’ experience working with elephants. I also had the privilege of meeting Bhagu Subba, the aajivan subba, famous for saving King Mahendra’s life from a tiger attack during shikar. I made many great friends among the hattisare at Khorsor and Sauraha, most of whom were Tharus.

VOT: Can you tell our readers about your findings from the research? It would be great if you can tell something about the contribution of Tharus in the elephant handling and management in Nepal.

PL: My research was both historical and ethnographic. I was concerned with tracing the history of captive elephant management in Nepal and its changing role in trade, hunting, conservation, and tourism. I was also concerned to explore the private social world of the elephant stable, and to investigate the expert knowledge and skilled practices of the elephant handlers. I was particularly interested in apprenticeship learning, and I pursued these objectives by means of participant observation, photographic documentation, and interviewing. What became evident to me was that state sponsorship had fostered a tradition of skilled and dangerous practice by which the Tharu had become experts at capturing and caring for elephants. This tradition was still crucial for managing Nepal’s lowland national parks in the early 21st century, and yet the expertise and the effort of the Tharu hattisare was not well recognised. The historical status of the Tharu as masinya matwali (enslavable alcohol drinkers) was clearly important here, and the preponderance of Bahuns and Chetris in the DNPWC (Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation) was overwhelming - among this group I encountered a great deal of prejudice and ignorance regarding Tharu people, and a reluctance to acknowledge their expertise as elephant handlers.

VOT: Have you heard about King George V's hunting expedition to the Terai? Do you know any involvement of elephant handlers, particularly Tharus in facilitating the hunts?

PL: The King George V hunt is particularly well documented in photographs, and represents a topic of my current research on the historical photography of human-elephant relations in colonial South Asia. I had the pleasure of meeting Bhagu Subba, who had served on the rastriya shikar of 1959, when Queen Elizabeth II visited.

VOT: What's your general perception about Tharus? They have been complaining that they are the original inhabitants of Terai but have been pushed to the boundary and oppressed by the recent settlers from hills and southern border (India). What's your say on this?

PL: Arjun Guneratne has explored the ethnogenesis of the Tharu in his excellent book "Many Tongues, One People: The Making of Tharu Identity in Nepal”. Malarial eradication and road building programmes transformed the Tarai environment and its access from the hills in the 20th century. This has caused massive demographic and socio-economic change, which has triggered some very lively identity politics. Since the Maoist insurgency we have also seen the rise of some very fractious politicking in the form of region based political parties, which I think has tended to inflame hatred and intolerance of ethnic others. In Sauraha, I think it is unfortunate that so much touristic development has happened with only marginal participation from local Tharu. I am though very much inspired by Tharu youth who seek to empower their local communities through local development work. My friend Birendra Mahato is an excellent example - he has played a major role in the Tharu Culture Museum, in working with local NGOs, in helping stimulate artisanal economic activity (like the production of paper from elephant dung), and most recently in responding to the devastating earthquakes.

Here’s a blog post by Piers during his recent fellowship at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society.

Interspecies Ethnography and Human-Elephant Relations in South Asia

Here’s an ethnographic documentary co-produced by Piers, based on his fieldwork at the Khorsor Elephant Breeding Centre.

Further, here’s a photo gallery by Piers.

Rice duck farming and the Tharus

The Chinese and Japanese had been releasing ducks in their rice fields since 1000 and 500 years respectively. In Nepal, the Tharus had been grazing ducks in the paddy fields since ancient times.

However, “It was not systematic,” says Krishna Chaudhary, a member of Paribartan Dhan Hans Palan Samuha, a group involved in rice-duck farming in Kathar of Chitwan.

Rice duck integrated farming uses the symbiotic relationship between rice and ducks to give a farmer better productivity.

The ducks eat away the pests and weeds from the rice fields and in return ensure better growth of rice plants by stimulating them with their beaks and paddling. The duck droppings act as organic fertiliser. 

Ram Lal Chaudhary, a member of Gunastariya Dhan Hans Palan Samuha, another group in Kumrose Village Development Committee of Chitwan, says, “I did not use any chemical fertiliser and pesticides in my paddy field but my neighbour did so three times in a single cultivation period.” “The ducks eat away the unwanted insects like drosophila and mosquito in the evening.”

From rice duck farming, the farmers harvest organic rice that commands a better price in the market. At the end, the ducks can be sold in the market and the farmers can thus earn more income.

To know more about the benefits of rice duck farming, read an Op-Ed that Menila Kharel and I wrote in The Kathmandu Post (published on 23 June 2015).

The message on a Tharu door

I am left spellbound whenever I meet and converse with eminent Newar scholar Kashinath Tamot. His knowledge and wisdom makes me a Lilliput and I crave for more every time I visit him.

When I visited him last time, we talked about one of the research articles he penned for Ian Alsop of the Asianart.com and his friend Michael Woerner. Michael had sent a picture of a wooden door, believed to be from a Tharu area and wanted help with reading and translation of the inscriptions on the door.

The doors, scheduled to be exhibited, lacked proper documentation. Mr Tamot did a thorough research on the Tharu door and wrote the below research article after months of hard work and perseverance.

With his permission I am publishing the article – the exact piece without any changes.

Tharu door. Courtesy: Mr Kashinath Tamot

The inscription of a Tharu door
By Kashinath Tamot
31 October 2014

Introduction
I was attracted from a pair of decorative wooden shutter of a door sent by my friend Ian Alsop, USA in his email of 1 October, 2014, which was sent to him by his friend Michael Woerner from Thailand. There is an inscription written continued in three panels of the shutter. The door is from the Tarai-lowland of Nepal, where aborigine Tharu lives. This is beautiful Tharu door.

I started to investigate to know about such door from Tharu area of Tarai. I consulted with Tarain elite friends. They said that this is more than a hundred years old. The shutters are fixed by pointed extension inserted into bottom sill and top sill - cum - lintel. I came to know that such decorative door is rare, almost lost. Not only this, but several arts and crafts of Tharu have been vanished. Some of them are Kharam 'slipper, wooden', / hukka 'smoking device', Muskari 'wooden trap', Dhanus 'bow' and Tir 'arrow', Dhaphan 'thread to weave fishes', Koina 'fishing net' and so on. (Gachhadar 2012)

There are 16 panels in the left shutter and 14 in the right one. There is an inscription written continued in three panels from left to right shutter and inside an animal figure. Among 28 panels, there are carved depiction of elephants (11), Camels (3), Oxen (3), Cobras (2) and one each ass, crane, leopard, monkey, deer and horse. These all are related to Tharu life.

As there are depictions of more elephants in eight simple and three ridden by Mahautya (elephant driver) with umbrella. This door must be related with elephant concerned person.

As sherpas are heroes of mountaineering, so Tharus are heroes of big game hunting of Nepal.

I remembered the reference:
   
From 1846 to 1951 (i.e., Rana period - KNT) Chitawan became the site of huge big game hunts, to which the maharajas invited all world's nobility (OLDFIELD, 1880/1974: 201ff.; KINLOCH, 1885; LANDON, 1928/1976, II: 150f.; SHAHA, 1970:2ff). A visit of King George V of England in 1911 entered into the annals. No fewer than 600 elephants were assembled from various parts of Nepal. New roads were built and a special camp for the King at Kasara (today headquarters of the national park) was constructed. (Műller-Bőker, 1999:37)

InscriptionI read the inscription consulting with several persons written in Devanagari script, colloquial and a dialectal Tharu language:

(Inscr.  I) Śrī chidhīrā jelāla pu(II)raba saṇeṭ magaru thāru lepacā sīlāl (III) cāchisa kākā

There are four persons mentioned: Jelal, Magaru, Silal and kaka (uncle) qualifying by words chidhirā, saṇet, lepacā and cāchisa. The last one may be a personal name of 'the uncle'.

Nothing found of qualifying words of the inscription. I bought some books on Tharu. I went through Royal documents from the collection of Tej Narayan Panjiar issued from 1726 to 1971 published in The Kings of Nepal and The Tharu of the Tarai. I found a document useful to us. It is a Lal mohar (royal deed) issued by the king Rajendra Bikram Shah (1816-1847) to Daya Raya, appointed him as elephant trainer in 1820 CE (Doc. no. 28). There it is described:

To Daya Raya: We bestow upon you the turban of honor (pagari) for training elephants (rautai) and the land previously given to Bandhu Raut. Capture the elephants by Jaghiya or Khor Kheda hunting methods according to the order of the elephant stable manager (daroga) and be at his disposal. Be loyal to us and enjoy the customary taxes and income from the elephant training function (sidhali rautai) for this area according to the record.

Tek Bahadur Shrestha and Gisele Krauskopff translated it and commented on this Royal document as below:
   

This document, dated 1820, deals with the post of elephant trainer (raut) and the privileges attached to it. The "turban of honor" is given to Daya Raya (or Daya Raut as he is addressed in document 29). Raut appears clearly as prestigious title related to raya or rai (see document 35). The Pagari was a headdress, a turban sometimes adorned with silver ornaments which was worn by high officials. Even if made of simple cloth, it was a symbol of honor.

As seen above (see document 24), many staff workers were needed to run the elephant stable. The post of daroga was the highest, followed by the raut who led the staff of drivers (mahautya), capturers (phanet) and cleaners. One of his main responsibilities was to capture and tame elephants, a skill at which the Tharu of this area were expert.
                                                                         (Krauskopff and Meyer, 2000:149)

My eyes flashed on the word phanet 'capturer'. Suddenly, I remembered the word sanet in our document and also remembered a Tharu caste name thanet/thanait. I realised, there seems to be relation between these words, possibly these are dialectal forms of the same word having the same meaning.

Sanet Magaru Tharu should be elephant-capturer! (Compare also Nepali samāt(nu) 'capture, seize'. (See Turner 1951)

Chidhira Jelal Puraba preceeds Sanet Magaru Tharu in the inscription. So, he should be senior to Magaru. Puraba 'east' (easterner) seems to be a given name by local people from his original place as Tharus give name such way.

I noticed the word sidhali rautai "elephant training" in the Lal mohar (doc 28). Sidhali and chidhira sounds similar (si-fricative, chi-affricate). There is one word in Nepali sadhaunu 'to train, teach, accustom' and sadhai 'training'. Sidhali has the same meaning. Rautai has also the same meaning - training. Sidhali rautai is a synonymous word compound of sidhali and rautai. From this, we know that rautai could also be said sidhali and so Raut is also could be a form of sidhali (Nepali sadhaune 'trainer'). We have chidhira for it. From this, we come to know that Jelal (Skt. Jayalal) is a Raut 'elephant trainer', senior to Sanet Magaru Tharu.

Shrestha and Krauskopff have described that there needs several staff workers to run Royal elephant stable which are established in Tarai area. They are as follows:

1. Daroga - Elephant stable manager
2. Raut - Head of the elephant care team
3. Mahautya - Elephant driver
4. Phanet - Elephant capturer
5.  ?     - Elephant stable cleaner

These are government official names. In our case Raut is Chidhira and Phanet is Sanet for local people, which seems to be their own dialectal name.

We have Lepaca used after Chidhira and Sanet. This seems to be missing word of elephant related glossary meant 'cleaner' of the stable. There is Sanskrit word lepaka 'plasterer, one who smears, white-washer?. Lepaca possibly developed from it with meaning expansion to be meant cleaner. There is done smearing of (elephant) dung first to keep aside to clean the stable. Silal (Skt. Shivalal) and uncle Cachisa seems to be cleaner of an unknown elephant stable.

Conclusion:I have interpreted here Chidhira as elephant caretaker, Sanet as elephant capturer (and also might be elephant driver) and Lepaca as stable cleaner with common sense of my knowledge of linguistics. These are not attested.

Lastly, I translate the inscription:

Honoured elephant trainer Jelal Puraba, elephant capturer Magaru Tharu, stable cleaners Silal (and) uncle Cachisa.

The decorative Tharu door seems to be of 19th century from a residence, where elephant trainer Jelal Puraba, capturer Magaru Tharu, stable cleaners. Silal and uncle Cachisa live. The door might have made donated by them from a skilled carpenter of the Nepal Tarai, possible from Chitwan. 


Bibliography
Gachhadar, Pramila, 2012

Tharu woman and their Arts & Crafts. Final Report submitted to Social Inclusion     Research Fund, SNV Nepal, Lalitpur.

Diwas, Tulasi and Pramod Pradhan, 2008

Tharu Lokabarta tatha Lok jeewan (A study on Tharu Folklore and Folklife).     Kathmandu: Society for Nepalese Folklore and Folk culture, VS 2065.

Muller-Boker, Ulrike, 1999

The Chitawan Tharus in Southern Nepal: An Anthropological Approach. Stuttgart:     Franz Stener Verlag. Tr. by Philip Pierce.

Chaudhary, Shanker Lal, 2003

Tharus: The Pioneer of Civilization of Nepal. Lalitpur: Shila Chaudhary.

Krauskopff, Gisele and Pamela Deuel Meyer, 2000

The kings of Nepal & the Tharu of the Tarai. California: rusca press/Kirtipur: CNAS

Turner, R.L., 1931

A comparative and Etymological Dictionary of the Nepali Language., New Delhi:     Allied Publisher:, Reprint 1980.

  
Tharu Door Inscription
Devanagari transliteration:

Left:

श्री
छिधीरा
जेलाल पु

Right:

रब  सणेट्
मगरु था
रु लेपचा
सीलाल्

Below (in ox image):

चाछि
स काका


Inscription in running text:

(१) श्री छिधीरा जेलाल पु(२)रब सणेट् मगरु थारु लेपचा सीलाल् (३) चाछिस काका

Roman transliteration:

Left:

śrī
chidhīrā
jelāla pu

Right:

raba saṇeṭ
magaru thā
ru lepacā
sīlāl

Below (in ox image):

cāchi
sa kākā

Inscription in running text:

(1) śrī chidhīrā jelāla pu(2)raba saṇeṭ magaru thāru lepacā sīlāl (3) cāchisa kākā