Shamanism in Modern-Day Nepal
A World Religions class paper formatted for Substack
Introduction
Shamanism is a form of religion that is poorly understood by most Western laypeople. Religiously speaking, the Western world is dominated by Christianity, Islam and Judaism—monotheistic faiths with a history of condemning polytheistic, “pagan” religions as misguided,infernal, and inferior. In addition to this, even monotheistic religions are losing ground to a growing secularism that champions science as a superior guiding principle to religion itself.
In reality, shamanism is useful in multiple ways to members of the communities in which it exists. In this paper, I will demonstrate the multifaceted utility of shamanism by exploring its manifestation in Nepal, where shamans are most commonly known as jhãkris (Sidky, 2010b). Nepal makes for an interesting case study due to its religious and social diversity. While longstanding shamanistic traditions are still practiced by indigenous people such as the Tamang (Sidky, 2010b), Nepal’s capital of Kathmandu is a modern metropolitan city complete with internet cafes; there, ancient tradition and modern life live side-by-side in the midst of a diverse religious milieu. As I will show, the interaction between ancient shamanistic beliefs and modernity has both positive and negative effects in Nepal. On the positive side, the work of the jhãkris is capable of clearing a space for healing on a personal level (Sidky, 2009) and empowering people to effect change on both personal and political levels (Holmberg, 2000; Holmberg, 2006). The botanical knowledge held by jhãkris is also contributing to the field of pharmacology in tangible ways (Uprety, Assalin, Boon, Yadav & Shrestha, 2010). On the other hand, Lionel Obadia has shown that in the case of the Sherpa people, when the traditional shamanistic views of the relationship between people and the environment meets with the realities and conventions of modern life, pollution and ecological damage are among the consequences (2008). Taken together, these facts show that shamanistic beliefs and practices hold an important place for the indigenous peoples who have by no means faded from the world.
Views of Shamanism: Convention and Controversy
According to Sidky, the field of shamanistic studies is quite contentious (2010b). Sidky names several assumptions that are commonly held about shamanism across various fields including (but not limited to) anthropology, archaeology, comparative religion, history, psychology/psychiatry, and neuroscience (2010b). It is assumed that:
Shamanism is an ancient and once widespread religion originating in the hunting-gathering cultures of the Upper Paleolithic period (Sidky, 2010b).
This “archaic religion” has been preserved intact up through the present day (Sidky, 2010b).
The assumed universality of shamanism suggests a biological basis for religiosity, or a “neurotheology,” (Sidky, 2010b).
Ancient cave art and petroglyphs can be used as evidence for the antiquity of shamanism (Sidky, 2010b).
Sidky further asserts that these assumptions are based largely on an uncritical acceptance of the picture painted by Mircea Eliade’s work on shamanism, especially Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (2010b). He challenges these assumptions on the basis of his own fieldwork in Nepal, and upon the fact that Eliade did no fieldwork at all, but instead drew his conclusions entirely from secondary sources (Sidky, 2010a; Sidky, 2010b). Problematically, Eliade’s conclusions were based specifically on unreliable observations of Siberian shamans and held to be generalizable to similar phenomena throughout the world (Sidky, 2010a). Due in large part to an over-reliance by academics in various fields on these core works by Eliade, the very definition of shamanism is called into question (Sidky, 2010a). This includes such a wide diversity of opinion that, on the one hand, some anthropologists believe the very concept of shamanism itself to be invalid and “insipid,” (Sidky, 2010b) and on the other hand, some scholars think we should be talking about the subject in terms of “shamanisms”—a plurality of distinct examples as opposed to a universal phenomenon (Sidky, 2010a).
Sidky’s own conclusions seem to pave a middle way between these two extremes. In Ethnographic Perspectives on Differentiating Shamans from other Ritual Intercessors, he affirms the multicultural, and thus pluralistic, stance toward shamanism by asserting that it is nonetheless possible to establish cross-cultural criteria for “diagnosing” shamanism (2010a). He based these conclusions largely on his observations of Nepalese jhãkris.
Nepalese Shamanism: The Work and Culture of the Jhãkris
The cultural and social climate in Nepal sets the stage for refuting two of the four assumptions about shamanism listed above. It is an ethnically diverse country where several religions live side-by-side; while 80% of Nepal’s inhabitants practice Hinduism, the remaining 20% of the population practice Tibetan Buddhism (10% of the population), Islam, Christianity or an indigenous faith (the latter of which is where we find the jhãkris) (Sidky, 2010b). According to Sidky, the practices of the jhãkris represent a “thriving shamanistic tradition that is rich and dynamic (2010a, p. 216).” The Hindu god Shiva is held by the jhãkris to have been the first shaman (Müller-Ebeling, Rätsch, & Shahi, 2002; Sidky, 2010b), and Buddhist elements include the incorporation of Guru Rinpoche as a deity within their practices (Sidky, 2010b). These are two examples of the dynamic and synthetic nature of the jhakris’ traditions. As such, these practices cannot be described as having been preserved intact from Siberian shamanism. Nepalese people subsist through agriculture, refuting the association of shamanistic traditions with hunter-gatherer cultures (Sidky, 2010a; Sidky, 2010b). Despite these departures from prevailing thought about shamanism, Sidky maintains that the traditions of the jhãkris demonstrate all of the features associated by Eliade with Siberian shamanism, suggesting that while differences prevail across cultures, there are commonalities that relate these traditions to one another in an abstract sense (2010a; 2010b).
Jhãkris in Nepal serve their communities in a number of capacities, but in keeping with the synthetic mindset of shamanistic traditions, all of them can be considered aspects of the jhãkri’s role as a healer in either direct or indirect ways. One of the more direct ways in which jhãkris heal community members is as physicians. Through their vast knowledge of plant-based medicine, they are able to help community members in ways similar to what we in the West would call a doctor or pharmacist; often, their consultations are a matter of listening to people describe their ailments before prescribing some form of herbal remedy (Müller-Ebeling et al., 2002). According to Uprety et al., conditions treatable through use of herbal remedies include gastro-intestinal problems, fever, headache, ophthalmological problems, toothache, kidney problems, and menstrual disorders (2010). Uprety et al.’s study identified 13 medicinal plant species effective enough to become priority candidates for sustainable production and export (2010). As this shows, the jhãkris are fairly effective when it comes to directly addressing medical ailments.
In other cases, the intervention of the jhãkri takes place in a ritual context (Sidky, 2009; Holmberg, 2000; Holmberg, 2006). Ontologically speaking, the jhãkri heals the patient by drumming, dancing and chanting in order to enter an altered state of consciousness (ASC) during which he or she either communicates with or is possessed by any number of different spiritual entities ranging from local land spirits to major deities (Sidky, 2010a). The jhãkri either negotiates a resolution with them (sometimes involving offerings or an overpowering of the spirit) or forces them into compliance by doing combat with them (Sidky, 2009). This commonly takes place in rituals (called “cinta”) that last through the entire night and are attended by the patient’s closest friends, family members, and neighbors (Sidky, 2009). The Nepali jhãkri differs from similar ritual intercessors in that he or she maintains a conscious recollection of what transpires during the ASC and also in that they are able to command or compel the spirits to do their bidding (Sidky, 2009; Sidky, 2010a). In contrast to this, other healers in the region, such as dhãmis, say that they are completely overtaken by spirits and have no recollection of what the spirit said or did while occupying their bodies (Sidky, 2010a).
There is some controversy over the extent to which ASC is important to the work performed by jhãkris (and indeed, other shamanistic healers throughout the world). Some researchers believe the trance states entered by shamans are genuine, whereas others insist that it is all an act put on by the shaman. Sidky suggests that the trance states are genuine by relating how he has witnessed jhãkris “engaging in extraordinary feats, such as licking red-hot iron rods, eating burning wicks, stepping on hot coals, and consuming massive amounts of distilled liquor without ill effects (2009, p. 175).” He adds that the jhãkris themselves have repeatedly told him that they “would never attempt such feats without harnessing divine powers (i.e., ASC). (Sidky, 2009, p. 175). Although this alone does not clearly illustrate why ASC may be an important factor in the healing performed by shamans, a deeper analysis of the psychodynamics that are thought to be at play in these scenarios can shed some light on this question.
According to Sidky, jhãkris are masters of leveraging the powers of belief and cultural symbolism and are adept at manipulating states of consciousness—not only their own, but crucially, those of the many other participants in the ceremonies as well—to bring about healing in the primary patient (2009). Although the jhãkris do claim to have command of divinely- sourced healing powers, it is thought that the true gift of jhãkris is to serve as facilitators who deftly arrange every circumstance of the cintas to stimulate healing within the patient him- or herself. Every element, including the people involved, the symbolic details of the ceremonies, and even their length and timing, serves to create an atmosphere that causes a beneficial change in the psyche of the patient (Sidky, 2009). By including the patient’s friends and family and involving them intimately in the narrative that unfolds during the ritual, the jhãkri ensures that the patient’s journey is supported by the people who matter most to them (Sidky, 2009). These rituals are far from being a mere cure; a large part of the jhãkri’s “diagnosis” takes place in the early part of the ritual. Weaving together elements that can include divine figures and astrological influences with insights and suggestions offered by the friends and family overnight, a coherent explanatory narrative is created that serves to explain the source of the illness (Sidky, 2009). With an array of conspiring causes thus identified, the jhãkri sets to work addressing each ritually; where disadvantageous astrological configurations are held responsible, the jhãkri manipulates physical representations of those forces to illustrate their nullification; where divinities are thought to be involved, offerings and appeals to said entities are attempted in elaborate psychodramas (Sidky, 2009). The length of the cintas and their scheduling overnight results in the patient, who is largely a passive observer of the proceedings, entering a state of sleep deprivation that psychologically increases their suggestibility and thus empowers the ceremony to work within the mind of the patient (Sidky, 2009). The jhãkri also drums rhythmically throughout the entire ceremony (Sidky, 2009), and rhythmic sound is known to induce trance states in and of itself; as such, everyone in the room, from the jhãkri to the patient to the patient’s friends and family is affected in this way. In a way, this is very similar to modern methods of hypnosis. What essentially occurs (or so theorizes Sidky) is that in the end, the ceremonies generate sufficient force in the mind of the patient to bring about a placebo effect— and while the placebo effect is often leaned upon in Western society to dismiss phenomena such as magic or supernatural forces, the reason it works as an explanation is that it is well-documented to be an effective, if ill-understood, factor in healing (2009). If it were not so, placebos would not be employed by doctors as often as they are; although we don’t really know why the effect exists or how it functions, its efficacy is well-known in modern medicine.
If it’s true that the ceremony works by serving to “trick” the patient into a placebo-induced recovery, it’s easy to understand why some scholars think the entire thing is an act perpetrated by a clever and all-too-knowing community leader. In that case, why would the jhãkri’s own ASC be important? Couldn’t he or she pull this all off without it? Perhaps they might, but there are a few reasons that ASC might be a powerful and important part of the picture.
One possibility is that the ASC might help the jhãkri to instill in the patient a confidence in his or her credibility and alleged divine powers. As Sidky noted, jhãkris often perform seemingly miraculous feats that would be regarded as torture by most people (2009). One function of ASC might be that pain is dulled or even eliminated while in such a state, enabling the jhãkri to do these things. In addition, the shaking and convulsing that a jhãkri often goes through during the ceremony may make it easier for the patient and witnesses to believe that the jhãkri is being inhabited by spirits, and a genuinely altered state of consciousness might make this more convincing (Sidky, 2009). Lastly, I speculate that ASC may even inform the way a jhãkri manages to so masterfully weave together the elements of the unfolding psychodrama by opening them up to more freely make intuitive associations between disparate symbolic elements in a way that might be hindered by a more alert, discursive state of mind that we are more familiar with in day-to-day life. In the end, it may not matter so much whether jhãkris genuinely enter altered states or are simply play-acting; in either case, the placebo effect is a possible outcome.
The aid of a jhãkri goes beyond directly (as in the case of plant medicine) or indirectly (as in the case of cintas) bringing about a physical healing effect. Another way jhãkris encourage wellness is through the ritual production or transference of power upon others (Holmberg, 2000, Holmberg 2006). This occurs at a rather abstract level within the minds of those helped by the shamans in a way that is intrinsically rooted in the beliefs of recipients. According to Holmberg, “...shamans (bombo) of highland Nepal possess the unique visionary capacity to see from above, from in between, and from outside social and cosmic orders produced elsewhere in Tamang ritual life (2006, p. 87).” In short, even as a Nepalese shaman utilizes belief in the power and reality of spirits (as well as social customs), he or she nonetheless operates at a level that transcends them. This gives them the ability to shift those very beliefs in ways that free the recipients from certain limitations in their own psyches that stem from those beliefs. In so doing, the bombo confers “wang,” or magical power, to those on whose behalf the bombo is performing the ritual (Holmberg, 2006).
Just as a patient’s condition is both diagnosed and remedied from within the context of the cinta, the jhãkri brings about this transfiguration of belief by first ritually “deconstructing” the “socio-cosmic” orders that exist for the recipients as the ritual itself commences (Holmberg, 2006). Seeing these orders for themselves as the arbitrary and socially-constructed structures that they are, the jhãkri utilizes the ritual in what may be viewed as an elaborate and deliberate farce that symbolically illustrates that arbitrariness itself to the recipients (Holmberg, 2000, Holmberg, 2006). In short, the jhãkri reveals to ritual attendees that they are essentially limited and disempowered by beliefs that only hold power over them because the attendees believe they do; if the jhãkri is successful, the recipients emerge from the ritual with a greater awareness of how they already unwittingly forge much of their reality and experience of the world by blindly adhering to a given set of beliefs and ideally, this will empower them to consciously seek and find alternatives without the previous constraints under which they operated. Thus, they are transformed from passive patients into active agents (Holmberg, 2006).
As an example, Holmberg describes the process in terms of the “soundings” or recitations of place performed by Tamang bombos in the highlands of Nepal (2006). The bombo first reaffirms the existing order by performing a routine ritual recitation of the names of many places that are familiar to the recipients, as geographic location is socially significant and confers intrinsic meanings to Tamang people (Holmberg, 2006). Next, the bombo assumes the form of a bird or even a bird-shaped divinity such as the Hindu Garuda; in Tamang culture, the avian ability of flight is symbolically suggestive of the jhãkri’s ability to traverse divine realms inaccessible to most people (Holmberg, 2006). The bombo proceeds to undertake this symbolic flight to heaven realms, and his or her recitations shift from a traditionally-prescribed recitation of places to a “real-time” narration of the bombo’s current travels (Holmberg, 2006). Symbolically, this transcendence of prevailing order effects the “deconstruction” theorized by Holmberg (2006). Consciously or not, this communicates to the recipients that the social and cosmic orders to which they were previously subject are not absolute, but in fact relative (otherwise, how else could anyone, even a bombo, move beyond and above them?). Finally, the bombo descends from the heights, and in a closing ritual narrative followed by a more informal dialogue with the participants, co-constructs a new, wider order for the recipients that results in greater power and agency—or, in other words, generation of wang (Holmberg, 2006).
In these cases of individual healing, the inherently social nature of the constructs that the bombo works with means that the same process employed to heal individuals can also be applied to entire groups of people in order to effect wider, socio-political empowerment. In fact, this is exactly the objective of the ritual called Checchu, which Holmberg explored in-depth (2000). In the specific performances examined by Holmberg, the headmen and bombos of the local Tamang hill community ritually challenged the political legitimacy of the Hindu monarchy that ruled out of Kathmandu, which subjected the Tamang to forced labor in the production of munitions (2000). In these rituals, the “deconstruction” phase involved mockery and derision of the high-caste Hindu monarchy, as well as spiritually-based exorcism of their “demonic” influence (Holmberg, 2000). The overall objective was to ritually generate a sense of power in the larger Tamang community which opened them up to their own inherent agency, ultimately helping them to realize their previous complicity in their own oppression through internalization of the caste system imposed upon them by their Hindu rulers (Holmberg, 2006). In this sense, we see that the capacity of shamans to “heal” and uplift others is far reaching, impacting individuals and entire communities alike.
While the guidance resulting from the interpretive role of Nepalese shamans is often beneficial and positive, it does have limitations and its impact is not always positive. As I’ve sufficiently demonstrated, these ritual intercessors are often great healers of people. However, the very same interpretive processes, rooted deeply as they are in animistic concepts, have been shown by Obadia to have negative effects on the health of local ecosystems as Nepal undergoes a modern transformation and opens itself up to tourism (2008). With Nepal’s opening to foreign commerce in 1950, modern ideologies of social and economic development from outside Nepal were adopted (Obadia, 2008). Beginning in the 1980s, this was transformed into an understanding of “sustainable development” and included the adoption of modern values of ecological conservation (Obadia, 2008). One might suppose that the net result of a society that already lived close to the land “refining” its ideology by consciously incorporating such eco-friendly values would be beneficial, but this did not prove to be the case among the Sherpa people of Nepal (Obadia, 2008). On the one hand, the Sherpa accepted the ideas of ecological conservation, but on the other hand, economic shifts made it possible for them to prosper by shifting from their previous focus on herding, agriculture, and trade to a focus on tourism, serving as guides to a new influx of foreigners fascinated by the prospect of exploring the Himalayas (Obadia, 2008). Although ecological conservation as an important concept was accepted by the Sherpa, the social pressure to be good providers for their families by capitalizing on the tourism industry conflicted with these new values. Failing to successfully reconcile these conflicting values, the Sherpas, in their facilitation of tourism, opened the local environment up to the inevitable detrimental impacts of such high tourism by Western visitors, including pollution and deforestation (Obadia, 2008). Obadia posits that this occurred because while the Sherpas attempted to incorporate ecological values, these were ultimately in conflict with their traditional emphasis on framing the idea of “pollution” purely in terms of the self and social relationships, in keeping with their traditional animistic views, instead of including the environment itself (Obadia, 2008). Thus, we see that while there is potential in an animistic worldview for shamanistic practitioners to benefit their community members, this power does not necessarily extend to a positive impact on the environment in which those people live.
Conclusion
As I have shown, shamanistic practitioners in Nepal such as jhãkris and bombos are versatile, adept and valuable healers among communities like the Tamang and Sherpa, among others. While the animistic and polytheistic beliefs of Nepalese laypeople may be viewed by some Westerners as provincial and even superstitious, shamans themselves demonstrate a depth of insight into human nature along physical, psychological and spiritual lines; indeed, they are keenly aware of the pitfalls of superstition along with some of its potential benefits, and are able to employ this knowledge in ways that are beneficial to community members and resemble the roles in Western society of clergy members such as priests, rabbis and imams. However, the methods employed by shamans go beyond the traditional roles attributed to these Western intercessors by including medicinal knowledge, and their intricate ritual technology operates at deep psychological levels with a potency and immediacy that is not typically seen in Western religion.
However, we must be cautious in our assessment of these practitioners, as shamanistic methods come with certain limitations and hitches just like spiritual intercessors of all kinds worldwide. They are most effective within their unique social contexts. For example, while their knowledge of plant medicine is vast and effective as a remedy, Uprety et al. note that this knowledge derives its primary strength as a substitute for modern, allopathic medicine when people are too poor to access it; in other words, for lack of access to Western medicine, plant remedies are a reliable but sub-optimal alternative (2010). Next, in the case of ritual healings and empowerments, these ceremonies work by essentially acknowledging the limiting factors in belief, and indeed manipulating them, albeit in a helpful way; in other words, a shaman might be quick to acknowledge that in a society with modern medicine, certain religious attitudes, and even psychotherapy, the specific practices employed in an indigenous culture would not be as necessary or relevant to a Westernized community; after all, if shamans are truly the meta-analyzing semantic impresarios they appear to be, they understand better than most of us how important context is in all human endeavors toward healing. Nonetheless, many Nepalese hospitals call in jhãkris to work their cures when modern medicine fails (Müller-Ebeling et al., 2002). Lastly, as economic development takes hold in Nepal, traditional beliefs and mores become ecological vulnerabilities as local people attempt to reconcile folk beliefs with the economic potentials of foreign tourism. Clearly, a number of caveats must be kept in mind when addressing the role of shamans in modern Nepalese communities; nonetheless, within those communities as they currently exist, shamans continue to play a vital and important role in support of Nepalese people.
Citations
Holmberg, D. (2000). Derision, exorcism, and the ritual production of power. American Ethnologist, 27(4), 927. https://doi-org.northpark.idm.oclc.org/10.1525/ae.2000.27.4.927
Holmberg, D. (2006). Transcendence, Power and Regeneration in Tamang Shamanic Practice. Critique of Anthropology, 26(1), 87–101. https://doi-org.northpark.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/0308275X06061485
Müller-Ebeling Claudia, Rätsch Christian, & Shahi, S. B. (2002). Shamanism and tantra in the Himalayas. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions.
Obadia, L. (2008). The Conflicting Relationships of Sherpas to Nature: Indigenous or Western Ecology? Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature & Culture, 2(1), 116–134.
https://doi-org.northpark.idm.oclc.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v2i1.116
Sidky, H. (2009). A Shaman’s Cure: The Relationship Between Altered States of Consciousness and Shamanic Healing. Anthropology of Consciousness, 20(2), 171–197. https://doi-org.northpark.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/j.1556-3537.2009.01016.x
Sidky, H. (2010a). Ethnographic Perspectives on Differentiating Shamans from other Ritual Intercessors. Asian Ethnology, 69(2), 213–240. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.northpark.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?\direct=true&AuthType=ip,url,uid&db=a9h&AN=57759705&site=ehost-live&scope=site