Religion has been the core of India’s tradition. A Sanskrit sloka by Valmiki in the Ramayana runs as under:
There (in the hermitage of Agastya) the Devas, Yakshas, the Nagas, and the bird-like like community live together, restricting their food habit for the sake of their cultivation of religion.
Religion in India has not only been a tradition of worship, it also controlled the entire community life. Valmiki says that even the tribals were obliged to regulate their food habits along with the prescriptions of their religion. No tribal society could have ever lived without religion.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
However, one exception has come to the stock of ethnographic data in social anthropology. In 1961, Fredrik Barth reported that among the Basseri pastoral tribal group of South Iran, there was total absence of any interest in religion.
The findings of Barth produced waves in anthropology. “His surprise is caused by the fact that religion seems to loom large in the lives of most of the peoples described in classical anthropological studies.
This may be a major reason why religion has always been a central field of inquiry in anthropology, even if, as Evans-Pritchard (1962) has pointed out, social scientists have themselves often been indifferent or hostile to religion.”
It is difficult to define religion. The difficulty arises because of the fact that everyone who attempts a definition becomes a victim of eth- nocentricism. He defines religion from the perspective of his own culture.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The result is that there is a complete absence non-ethnocentric definition. Rituals are related to religion. Religion is a belief and rituals are mechanisms through which beliefs are fulfilled.
If a community has a belief that floods can be controlled by worshipping evil spirits, the belief is religion and the sacrifice of a goat is a ritual. Again, if it is a belief that the Almighty resides in an idol, the offering of coconut is a ritual. It is through ritual that religion is practiced.
In the western world, religion was misunderstood as superstition and paganism. The concept of paganism was associated with non-Christian religions and, in particular, their practices of public rituals which expressed aspects of the content of the religion.
The concept of superstition was not largely reserved for descriptions of invisible interrelationships in the world which neither science authorized religion nor could ‘commonsense’ account for.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
From this kind of perspective, Islam and African ancestral cults could be located in the domain of paganism, while, and say the Trobriand islanders’ belief that they die because of witchcraft and the common notion in the Mediterranean region and elsewhere that some persons are possessed by the evil eye, would be expressions of superstition.
Traditionally, in social anthropology, religion has been defined as a form of social belief in supernatural power. This supernatural power is controlled or appeased through rituals.
Indian tribes give a central place to religious beliefs. The traditional tribal religion in our country has experienced the impact of some non-tribal religions also. There has been influence of Christianity on tribal religion apart from.
Hinduism is also making its inroads. Whatever we get in the form of tribal religion is influenced by the local religions found in a particular tribal hinterland. The tribes in India have passed through a long process of evolution in their religion.
Perhaps, one of the oldest definitions of religion is given by E.B. Tylor:
The definition is precise and very simple. But it poses a difficult question: After all, what is supernatural? The answer to this question is related to knowledge.
It is the knowledge of the people which helps define religion. Knowledge can be defined so as to include ‘facts’ which people are reasonably certain of and act upon, and which also have a social origin.
If we accept Tylor’s definition, it would be difficult for us to answer the question related to supernatural. The definition, therefore, does not satisfy one fully.
We can then look at the definition given by Durkheim who is considered to be the father of the sociology of religion. His argument is that what is considered supernatural by the society is supernatural.
This means that the society defines the supernatural. It is from this perspective that Durkheim considers society as the god; what is sacred is religion; what is profane is not religion, that is, utilitarian only. Durkheim has distributed all the things of the world in only two categories sacred and profane.
Things which are held in ‘respect’ are sacred and, therefore, related to supernatural. And, things which are considered to be items of utility are profane and, therefore, related to the worldly activities.
Thus, sacred is supernatural and profane worldly. In a famous statement Durkheim claimed that “religion at its most profound level means society’s worship of itself”.
Durkheim’s understanding of religion was basically functional. It was further extended by Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski, for whom religion was functional for social integration of the society. Malinowski defined religion with reference to the Australian tribes:
Religion is a mode of action as well as a system of belief and a sociological phenomenon as well as a personal experience.
Obviously, Malinowski takes a functional position. For him, religion is a system which holds together different aspects of tribal life. If we analyze Tylor, Durkheim, Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski, we find that religion is a functional part of society. Thus, the approach is functional-structural and socially integrative.