Buddhist-Animist Convergence in Pre-Colonial Arunachal Pradesh, 800-1826 CE

Summary

Between the eighth and early nineteenth centuries, Tibetan Buddhist monastic traditions encountered indigenous animist cosmologies in the hill societies of present-day Arunachal Pradesh. Monpa and Sherdukpen communities in the west selectively adopted Gelugpa and Nyingmapa Buddhist elements while retaining animal sacrifice, spirit propitiation, and shamanic healing. Eastern communities such as the Adis, Apatanis, Galos, and Nishis maintained their Donyi-Polo and related animist traditions largely unchanged. This differential reception was shaped by the political economy of Tibetan monastic expansion centered on Tawang Monastery (founded c. 1680–81), trans-Himalayan trade routes, and ecological constraints. Syncretism was an active, creative negotiation, not passive reception. The Treaty of Yandaboo (1826) severed trans-Himalayan connections, and British colonial ethnography later imposed categorical distinctions that obscured integrated local practice.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This article examines the encounter between Tibetan Buddhist monastic traditions and indigenous animist cosmologies in the hill societies of present-day Arunachal Pradesh between the eighth and early nineteenth centuries. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork by Verrier Elwin, Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, and Niranjan Sarkar, alongside material and archival evidence, the study traces how the Monpa and Sherdukpen communities of the western districts selectively appropriated Gelugpa and Nyingmapa Buddhist elements while retaining animal sacrifice, spirit propitiation, and shamanic healing practices. In contrast, eastern communities the Adis, Apatanis, Galos, and Nishis maintained their Donyi-Polo and related animist traditions largely unmodified by Buddhist influence. The article argues that this differential reception was shaped by three principal forces: the political economy of Tibetan monastic expansion anchored by the Tawang Monastery (founded c. 1680–81), the trans-Himalayan trade routes linking the Assam plains to the Tibetan plateau, and the ecological constraints of high-altitude subsistence. The Monpa case demonstrates that syncretism was not passive reception or incomplete conversion but an active, creative negotiation in which communities constructed hybrid religious worlds tailored to their material circumstances. The Treaty of Yandaboo (1826), which transferred Assam to British control, serves as a terminus by severing many of the trans-Himalayan political connections that had sustained the Buddhist-animist contact zone for centuries, while British colonial ethnography subsequently imposed categorical distinctions between "Buddhist" and "tribal" that obscured the integrated nature of local religious practice.