Devalok
Origin · 1 telling · East India

Thakur Jiu and the two birds

The Santal creator makes two water-birds over the primal sea; from their eggs come the first man and woman, and no Puranic god appears.

Who is in it

The story, beat by beat

  1. In the beginning there is only water.
  2. Thakur Jiu makes two water-birds, but they have nowhere to rest.
  3. Earth is brought up from below and the birds nest on the lump of soil.
  4. From their eggs hatch Pilchu Haram and Pilchu Budhi, the first couple.
  5. Their descendants wander through Hihiri Pipiri and Chai Champa before settling where the Santals now live.
  6. Marang Buru, the great mountain, leads the bongas and stays closest to people.

creation birds first couple earth diver

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Oral

Santal oral tradition (Kherwal Bansha Dharam Puthi)

East India · Santal Pargana, Jharkhand Tribal Santali-speaking Santals

The Santal account of beginnings is told in the sacred grove and written down in the Kherwal Bansha Dharam Puthi tradition. When everything was water, Thakur Jiu made a pair of water-birds, and because they had no perch, soil was fetched from under the sea and the birds built a nest on it. Two eggs gave the first man and the first woman, Pilchu Haram and Pilchu Budhi, whose children multiplied and travelled through the remembered lands of Hihiri Pipiri and Chai Champa before reaching the Santal country. Marang Buru, the Great Mountain, is the spirit closest to human life and leads the bongas. The story has no place for Brahma, Vishnu or Shiva; it is a complete cosmology of its own.

Santal people — Wikipedia; Cosmography in the oral tradition of the Santhals: an anthropological perspective; The Santhal and Sarna Dharma

Sources: Santal people — Wikipedia; Cosmography in the oral tradition of the Santhals: an anthropological perspective; The Santhal and Sarna Dharma