Ban Jhakri Falls - Sikkim - Wikipedia (29)

Banjhākri and Banjhākrini are shamanic deities in the tradition of the Kirati people of Nepal , Sikkim

Darjeeling Darjeeling (, , ) is a town and municipality in the northernmost region of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located in the Eastern Himalayas, it has an average elevation of . To the west of Darjeeling lies the easternmost province of Nepal, ...

, Kalimpong of India They are a couple, and possibly different aspects of the same being. They are supernatural

shaman Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiri ...

s of the forest. In the Nepali language, ''ban'' means "wilderness", ''

jhākri Jhākri ( ne, झाक्री) is the Nepali word for shaman or diviner. It is sometimes reserved specifically for practitioners of Nepali shamanism, such as that practiced among the Tamang people and the Magars; it is also used in the Indi ...

'' means "shaman", and ''jhākrini'' means "shamaness". Banjhākrini is also known as Lemlemey. Banjhākri is a short, wild, simian trickster who is a descendant of the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

. His ears are large and his feet point backward. Long, matted hair covers his entire body, except for his face and palms, and he plays a golden

dhyāngro The dhyāngro is a frame drum played by the '' jhakri'' (shamans) of Nepal—especially those of the Magars, the Kirati, and the Tamang—as well as by Tibetan Buddhist musicians. The dhyāngro may be either single- or double-headed. Double-head ...

. The dhyangro is the

frame drum A frame drum is a drum that has a drumhead width greater than its depth. It is one of the most ancient musical instruments, and perhaps the first drum to be invented. It has a single drumhead that is usually made of rawhide, but man-made mate ...

played by Nepali jhākri. Banjhākri finds human children who have the potential to be great shamans, and takes them back to his cave for training. There, the children are in danger of being eaten whole by Banjhākrini. Banjhākrini is both ursine and humanoid, with long hair on her head, long, pendulous breasts, and backward-pointing feet. She is usually described as bloodthirsty and brutal. She carries a symbolic golden

sickle A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting succulent forage chiefly for feeding livestock, ...

. Although Banjhākri abducts boys (and, by some accounts, girls), he does not do so out of malice. He trains the children who pass Banjhākrini's initiation. When the children return home with their shamanic training, they can become more powerful than the shamans trained by people. Like the

yeti The Yeti ()"Yeti"
''

One anthropologist, Homayun Sidky, has suggested that Banjhākri is a

therianthrope Therianthropy is the mythological ability of human beings to metamorphose into animals or hybrids by means of shapeshifting. It is possible that cave drawings found at Les Trois Frères, in France, depict ancient beliefs in the concept. The be ...

; a humanoid who changes into a non-human animal form. Some legends say that there are numerous ban-jhākri and ban-jhākrini. In any case, the shamans of Nepal regard the original Banjhākri as the founder of Nepali shamanism. Banjhākri is revered and celebrated as a teacher and as the god of the forest.

References

{{Reflist Asian shamanism Nepalese folklore Shamans Trickster deities Asian deities Nature deities Nepalese legendary creatures Therianthropy

See also

References