The Ideology of a Peripheral Religious Cult and the Subaltern Quest for Identity A Study of the Rites of Dharmathakur in West Bengal

Abstract

Worshipped in many districts of Bengal, for example, Purulia, Birbhum, Bankura, Midnapore, Burdwan, Hooghly, Howrah, and the Twenty-four Parganas, 1 the deity Dharma or Dharmathakur, as he is called, comes down to us supposedly from pre-Vedic times. Niharranjan Ray claims that Dharmathakur was originally a preAryan or non-Aryan deity who gradually "merged with Varu.J;~a, the chariot-borne Siirya, Kiirma, the Puranic tortoise avatO.ra, and Kalki, the last incarnation of Vi~QU, eventually achieving transformation as Dharmathakur". 2 However, despite later accretions and amalgamations Dharmathakur retains a non-Brahmanical, pre-Vedic character in many ways.