Here and there I met scholarly people from here and from outside and from my country, India. The questions they asked were about our culture. Some of them equate Khasi culture with Seng Khasi, and how the indigenous culture differs from Christianity, with one of its denominations trying to assimilate our Culture. These things provoked me to delve into it as much as I can by recalling what’s heard, seen from the past, and the direct experiences. It took many long years to analyse, generalise and fit the pieces into one scheme of thought that is simple to comprehend. The result of the above journey found acceptance in the Delhi University in my paper titled: “Khasi Philosophy As viewed From Divine Healing Practices”. Till these days, the confusion looms large over the population which was already divided on religious lines.
The Indigenous School: “Katba ka Ri Europe ka dang shah kynoi ha pneh jong ka jingdum, ngi la long kiba lah shai (while Europe was slumbering in the arms of the dark age, we were the enlightened ones)” said my late teacher. This is one motivator. Another teacher is my father. He once said: “Ka mattah kaba don knup, ka kit kynram ïa la ka Hukum Maduh dang kha haduh ban da ïap (the snail having a shell carries it eternally)”, and no explanation given. This is the type of school we’re brought up in. The elders speak in metaphors. Had I not met one strange phenomenon, it would have evaporated into oblivion. So, it’s a long process. Those who get the hidden idea, get it on their own, and melt into Mysticism in Nature, and evolve into being the communicators to the law of Co-existence, not only among fellow humans; those who don’t have the proclivity, don’t imitate. That’s a hard school. In this school there’s no room for mere collection of knowledge and information; but by evolving and transforming. This is how knowledge was passed down from one generation to another without founding any school of thought. It’s a nerve-trying school.
Archery is a traditional sport which involves a mental jam string among contesting parties in order to win the favour of the goddess of the sport. So, it’s natural for one to evolve into being one thinker in one aspect of the culture that lives in its orality, where the tongue, mind and soul meet; not only seeing, but also arguing on the covenant of the contesting parties. There were times when in defeat, I had resorted to divination. In the journey, I also came across the experiences which entail the understanding of the general ontological values of the existents, including those of the spirits – their nature of existence, powers, roles in the space they occupied, etc. Above these, the encounters with the shamans opened the gate to the essence of some other forms of communication with the spiritual realm at times, hearing the events that would scare a modern person who claims to have known the secrets of Nature through science.
To put this knowledge lying hidden in its bosom, in a one-liner, I can say – “our ancestors brought quantum physics from the skies down into real life experience”. What does armchair knowledge say about these, I asked myself? One academic said he never knew that we have a word for “Ontology”. To remind ourselves, I’d say -“this knowledge constitutes the core of all communications to the co-existents”. For example, “these existents understand, accept the communication only if we appeal to their honour, speak their language, their ontological foundation”. In western culture, the spirits are taken as being malignant, always on the lookout for an opportunity to punish. With us, it’s different. These in spiritual form, down to the germs, winds, rains, and other forces of nature, are co-inhabitants who carry the honour in their being; this honour is not to destroy what they do not create. This is one unbridgeable chasm separating the civilisations existing here.
What do we the literate ones now do? We only write and lecture about what we hear and read from the books. The symbols used in the rites and rituals would suffice for a book, and that’s all; though once we were the worshippers of the essence. Now the world knows and takes our voices for truth. This is our modern education, and modern school of thought; we need to do more. In our indigenous knowledge system, this writer, and all speaking the same language, is only conduits; there’s no ownership of the work done. Their knowledge is an eternally living, an active law of Mother Nature, of which our earth is one unit, which whether written or not, nothing would change. Every writer writing on these laws, only reveals what’s written by that eternal Poet, the Creator-authors may come and go but the law remains forever!
Ka Kren-Ka Khana (The communication): This component constitutes the core of the living knowledge system. From the encounters with fellow villagers around Sohra, and some from the Ri-Bhoi area, I came to learn that Khasi language is multi-layered: the commercial, literary, and metaphysical layers. This third one, though it constitutes a chunk of our vocabulary, and the knowledge it bears, is in danger of phasing out of our knowledge, and from the temples of learning. It’s endangered on account of them being loaded with deep meaning, and that it’s used only by a very small number of speakers. And the third reason is that it is used only on rare occasions, such during performance of religious rites and rituals, and other related forms of communication to the cosmic Law.
How the legends were written: Ancestors wrote their knowledge system in the form of stories, legends on the hills, rivers, animals, plants, and the moons and stars, and etc. In the process of telling, retelling the stories, they added the twists and turns in order to add flavour. These were done on purpose in order to make the stories longer, interesting and arresting. It is because of these very elements that we still have the legends we have till date. Some famous legends are: Ka Jingkieng Ksiar: it reminds of the consummation of the cosmic /divine plan for the continuation of life cycle. If the mother carries the young forever, the whole design would have been defeated; the cosmic consciousness (God, or other names of God) wouldn’t allow that. Sohpetbneng = Sohpet Blei (divine navel); Sohpet (the navel) connecting the mother and the young. The legend of Ka Dorbar Blei (Divine Council) is another. It is about the manifestation /birth of the universe as it appears to the senses; and other stories such as “U Sier Lapalang, Ka Diengïei. These stories emanate from the observation, analysis of the natural phenomena, and finally through the generalisation, evolved our legends and other stories. This is the boundary defining how we shall interpret them.
Our history: The being we wear now, is not only a mechanical physical dimension. There’s more to this, though the words “Nongthaw-Nongbuh, Nongpynlong-Pynman” are in use. What is it then? By in-depth analysis, we from the beginning of time, did participate in the Cause without which reason, we wouldn’t have manifested here. So, there’s no dichotomy between the Creator and the created. One old man from Khat-ar-shnong said -“Nga lah rim katba rim u Nongthaw” (I’m as old as the Creator), a thing which our moderns would call a blasphemy- a thing, that would have one get burnt at the stakes some 500 years ago in Europe. Another take-away from this, is that we can say -“we are one species that evolved with the essence involved in us”. This is our historical philosophy, if such a terminology matters to us. We say this because we believe we know that “we exist first, and the philosophy is only a child of the first premise, which came in later stages of human existence.
The goal of life: From the indigenous angle one can say that “Ka im suk-im tngen, im palei para bynriew (living a simple, contented life and at peace with fellow men) are the values which are in rhythm with the longing of the soul within: the teaching that whispers from within, which are at constant conflict with the social environment. One coming out of these pushes and pulls, are unaffected by them, uniting with one’s real self; the common goal of humanity; the end point of all colours, intellectualism, and philosophy.
The modern Values: The “Kamai Ïa ka Hok, im tip briew-tip blei, tip kur-tip kha” (earn righteousness, know man and know god, know the cognate and agnate) ring loud and clear throughout our hills. They have been raised to the rank of we saying they are the pivot of the philosophy of the tribe. To this, let’s spare a second thought, for these are not known by all, and not inspired from within a human organism; thus, they are an imposition. First reason – at the rate of this, we can say that as a people, we have no more philosophy; the world knows what values we practice -political, social; they are mere modern “social values”. They are not “existential values”. Second reason – by logic of the word “Tip”meaning “know”, a child who’s not in the capacity “to know”, would have been a sub-human (to say the least for by our knowledge system, none is excluded from the knowledge as all forms of existents participated in the Creator, and evolved with it being involved in their being. These values which come later don’t commensurate with the culture the history of which is timeless; the universality and profundity of which is beyond human comprehension; can be expressed only by the words “I Exist”. Here lies the picture of the nature of Reality, by our tradition.
In this, what’s not known, but experienced by all from the time of conception, is a reality. It being a reality, defying it, is tantamount to death. For example, hunger is a reality, none can defy it while trying to live. What if these values are not known? The answer lies not in the act of knowing, being able to know. Just living life (in complete oblivion of its rules, in innocence, a conscientious life, is a knowledge in itself. Righteousness in oblivion is what we are striving after it; it is the eternal goal of humanity. “Ka tip kha” (knowing those from the father’s line?). I may not know all these, but their blood flows in me; do I have to philosophise this?
Our Idea of the Godhead: Unlike the Abrahamic religions, our godhead is impersonal; genderless. We can call it U Blei (male god) or Ka Blei (the goddess) and others. Its other names are “Ka Hok, Ka Hukum, Nongthaw-Nongbuh, Nongjali-jaum” and other names which are addressed according to the specific needs- for example, “Nongjali-jaum” is the healer, the restorer of the balance lost due to illness, or some other reasons. This Godhead is immune to praises, curses, gifts, blames, and all. It’s neither the known nor the unknown for all that we know of it, is known through it. In its eyes there are no theists, or atheists. No amount of prayers, rites and rituals can make it bend its law. Under it there’s no believer, non-believer; the atheists are as holy as the worshippers. To it nothing can be given, and from it nothing can be taken; the worldly are as divine as the religious. What’s left of us is only to live life. The good we do; we do to the self; so, it’s with the bad. Heaven, hell is here, inside us. There’s no coming and no going in one universe. This is the picture of the impersonal, the imminent, the centre of which is nowhere, but its circumference is everywhere. That’s why religions were not associated with the impersonal, knowing full well that it won’t bend its Law.
Ancestors’ Religions: Life and protecting and preserving it occupies the centre stage of the interplay of ancestors with the spiritual realm; that’s a part of the knowledge system we inherited. Ancestors believe that the Cosmic design manifests itself in Life, a thing which manifests in different forms, and different degrees of intensity of activities (many of them, their activity not seen to our eyes as is the case with those the western science says are the inanimate). We never had a term “non living”. The air, termed as nonliving, is but the same element that sustains life.
Religions were not a luxury. They were improvised for safeguarding the life sacrosanct only to serve purpose during the most critical periods of existence, and nothing more. The gods that protected life from time immemorial were the spirits of ancestors, and the “Ryngkew-Basa “ (sanctioned to preserve life on land). In such religions they invoke, propitiate, and fulfill the rites and rituals according to the covenant made. Once life has been secured, all things are settled: they can either part ways with the aforementioned gods (with due process of communication), or keep them, depending on their knowledge of the repercussions of such communications. That’s why our ancestors never institutionalised their religions, saying – “Husiar ia ka leh bynriew, ïoh wan ka lait-kylla hadien-habud” (beware of man-made acts as they are loaded with disastrous repercussions).
Inspite of the above, under the modern education system, the future of traditional knowledge is not without challenges. Another reason lies in the “Daw Ïing” (internal factor) in that we see ourselves as a religious race instead of embracing the self as one part of humanity, and as integral unit of Cosmic Divinity, and reality.
Iasaid Khongjee
