The Santal are granted
Scheduled Tribe status in five states:
Bihar,
West Bengal,
Jharkhand,
Odisha, and
Tripura, where they account for a total population of 6,570,807 according to the
2011 Census of India. Of this population, 63.15% are reported as
Hindu, 23% as
Sarna, 7.28% as
Sari Dharam (all in West Bengal), and 5.46% as
Christian. Other minor religious affiliations include Bidin (27,602),
Muslim (13,014), Santal (4,771), Sumra Sandhi (2,059), Sarvdharm (1,625),
Buddhist (1,121), Adi Bassi (1,100),
Sikh (987), Kharwar (385), Sant (356), Saran (352), Jain (348), Achinthar (273), Sarin (185), Marangboro (167), Saranath (157), Seran (125), Adi (84), and Alchichi (78). Additionally, 102 were
Atheist, 331 were believers of
Tribal religion, 1,123 followed other unclassified religions, and 16,974 did not state any religious affiliation. Historically, the Santals practised their
autonomous religious beliefs without assigning specific nomenclature to their faith. From the
beginning of census operations in India, they mobilised into various
religious-political movements, identifying under names such as
Santal,
Adibasi,
Jaher,
Sohrai,
Sari, and
Sarna, to distinguish themselves from the prevalent religions of India, such as Hinduism and Christianity. Although, those beliefs denomination were administratively clubbed together as
Animism in the colonial census. Post-independence, the census publishes macro-level
de facto data, specifically for the scheduled communities; thus, there has been a tendency toward revivalism and unification of diverse religious identities among them, with many Santals aligning under the banners of Sarna Dharma, except for the Santals of West Bengal. They regarded it as having more political motives than religious ones and adhered to their own developed religion, named Sari Dharma, based on their ancestral ethics, values, and beliefs. In fact, in the 1961 census, except for Hinduism, most Santals identified their religion by their own ethnic identity,
Santhal, while others identified with various beliefs, including Sari and Sarna Dharma. Later, in the 1971 census, the Santhal religion was replaced by Sarna Dharma, a religious identity that only a few Santals had identified with in previous censuses, and the shift was primarily attributed to the Jharkhand statehood movement. However, while all those terms differ in nomenclature from a religio-political perspective, in practice, they reflect a synthesis of ancestral autonomous beliefs and elements of dominant religions like Hinduism and Christianity. In the religious beliefs of Santals, the core of reverence falls on a court of
spirits (), who handle different aspects of the world and who are placated with prayers and offerings. These benevolent spirits operate at the village, household, ancestor, and sub-clan level, along with evil spirits that cause disease and can inhabit village boundaries, mountains, water, tigers, and the forest. There are several ranks of : the most important are associated intimately with
Marang Buru and are worshipped by all Santals. These include , and . Other , who are held to be less powerful, are the spirits of important people of the village who have since been deified. There is also another class of who are feared as bringers of evil. These spirits are not placated by a
priest but by a
medicine-man called . In the present-day, belief in these malignant is eroding due to the penetration of modern medical science. The lack of a separate name for malignant caused many early colonial scholars to present Santal religion as wholly focused on the appeasement of evil spirits or as representing bongas as exclusively harmful. However in itself simply means a supernatural force in the world and has no specific connotation with good or evil. Moreover, these bongas do not refer to specific objects but to the invisible force that governs or is associated with those objects. The Santal creation story holds that originally the world was water, and Marang Buru and some lesser deities were the only inhabitants. When some spirits requested permission to make humans, Marang Buru asked to create the human bodies. When she had finally succeeded, she was told by Marang Buru to use the human spirits that were high on the rafters of his hut. She could not reach the human spirit, and took the bird spirit instead. When Marang Buru integrated the spirits with the bodies, they flew away and asked for a place to build a nest. Marang Buru could not get anyone else to bring land to the surface, and so the tortoise volunteered and pushed the Earth onto his back. The birds then gave birth to a boy and a girl called and . These two had seven sons and seven daughters, but the couple soon had a quarrel and separated. Pilchu Haram and his sons became great hunters, and on a time came upon the daughters, who had become maidens and were unrecognisable. They became introduced and made love. Looking for his sons, Pilchu Haram discovered an old woman and asked for fire, and upon talking to her more, he discovered his wife and reconciled with her. Another version tells how Pilchu Budhi was in fact in tears at her daughters' disappearance, but Marang Buru reassured her that they were all safe and brought her to reconcile with her husband. When their sons found out they had married their sisters, they were very angry and would have killed their parents if Marang Buru had not hidden them in a cave, where they stayed for the rest of their days. The children of these seven couples became the progenitors of the Santal clans. A characteristic feature of a Santal village is a
sacred grove (known as ) on the edge of the village where many spirits live and where a series of annual festivals take place. The , a raised
mound of earth covered with a thatched roof outside the headman's house, is where the Majhi's ancestors' spirits live. During the summer, a jug of water is placed there so the spirits can drink. Here the most important decisions of the village are made, including judgements. , the holy place of Santal , Odisha A yearly round of rituals connected with the agricultural cycle, along with life-cycle rituals for birth, marriage and burial at death, involves petitions to the spirits and offerings that include the sacrifice of animals, usually birds. Religious leaders are male specialists in medical cures who practice divination and witchcraft (the socio-historic meaning of the term, used here, refers to the ritual practice of magic and is not pejorative). Similar beliefs are common among other
tribes on the
Chota Nagpur Plateau like the
Kharia,
Munda, and
Oraon. Smaller and more isolated tribes often demonstrate less articulated classification systems of the spiritual hierarchy described as
animism or a generalised worship of spiritual energies connected with locations, activities, and social groups. Religious concepts are intricately entwined with ideas about nature and interaction with local ecological systems. As in Santal religion, religious specialists are drawn from the village or family and serve a wide range of spiritual functions that focus on placating potentially dangerous spirits and co-ordinating rituals. == Politics ==