Biomedicine and Capitalism | Impact on Lha-Chho in Spiti

Khartan, Home of the deity of Khar village.

Spiti Valley is a very sparsely populated cold desert located in the Himalayan region of district Lahaul Spiti in Himachal Pradesh. Majority of the population here are followers of Buddhist religion. The earliest known phase of evolution and development of Buddhism in Spiti goes back to the Second Diffusion of Buddhism in Himalayan territories, which took place in the late 10t​h and 11t​h centuries. The region harbours five prominent monasteries in the villages Kaza, Gungri, Dankhar, Kyi and Tabo which belong to different sects of Buddhism namely Sakya, Nyingma and Gelug respectively. However, the history before the evolution of Buddhism in the region is undocumented. From local interactions, conversations with old residents of the valley, architectural remains and scholarly research, I was able to make sense of the Pre-Buddhist Indigenous religion which involved worship of local deities called ​lha​. Despite the prominent monastery structures and Buddhist teachings, the beliefs and the practices associated with ​Lha-Chho are still prevalent in the region. However, with increasing development in Spiti through the advent of biomedicine and construction of functional and reliable trade routes, practices and beliefs in ​Lha-Chho are on a rapid decline. These two social forces are therefore, making the region partially disenchanted in the sense that supernatural explanations of the world entailing spirits are being replaced with worldly explanations using scientific logic and empirical evidence.

From local interactions, Lha-Chho seems to be the religion that people of the Spiti Valley followed before the evolution of Buddhism in the region. Besides monasteries, many villages have small primitive structures of one room known as ​lha-khang ​locally. ​Lha-Khang is literally translated as house of the deity and is dedicated to the deity of the village. In some villages like Khar and Todnam in Pin Valley, one may find a stack of branches of ​shugpa (juniper) of about five-six feet high raised on the roofs of houses dedicated to the local deity. Usually, symbolic representations such as rocks are found inside the lha-khang. At some places, a small stone structure of about three or four feet high called lha-tho (pillar of deity) is constructed. However, presently some of them house statues of Buddhist deities. At Sagnam, the local deity is named Zambala. Inside the lha-khang there are the idols of Buddha, Zambala and Guru Rinpoche. Traditionally, the deities are attended by a priest locally known as lha-bdag who offers regular worship and does other services like lighting lamps and burning incense sticks and ​shugpa​. Some of the villages also have a priest called ​lha-pha​ who receives the spirit of the local deity and speaks on its behalf. Most of the villages have individual names for the deity or ​lha of their village. The residents of Khar village call their lha by the name ​seb-lha. There is also a temple called ​khartang built on the top of a hillock dedicated to this lha. Seb-lha is supposed to be the chief head of all the local deities of Pin Valley. Near the temple there are ruins of old structures which the locals claim was the actual village before settlement began in the plains just below the hill. The temple also has relics, locally called ​ku-dung of Meme Ngawang, Lama Chhoyzang and Lama Chhering who are said to have been lha-bdag of the temple and the deity. Furthermore, God of village Gungri in Pin Valley is named as ​Ge-nyen Ku-lha Kha-ri. ​The deity, however does not have a lha-khang ​of its own and is worshipped alongside other Buddhist deities in Ugyen Sanag Choling Monastery.​

The pre-Buddhist religion in Spiti Valley displays several similarities to shamanism where some individuals are charismatically endowed with powers to enter a trance state and practice divination and healing. The ​lha-pha existing in the villages are therefore equivalent to shamans. The local deities can be male or female but most of the existing ​lha-pha in villages of Pin Valley are male. ​Lha-pha although being a hereditary role is also dependent on the choice of the person upon whom this role befalls. He is usually consulted by villagers to conduct the holy ritual when any of their loved one falls sick unexpectedly or for a prolonged time. During the ritual, he wears a special attire which looks like a white robe. He also ties a white cloth around his head and carries a metallic structure, ​phorang laden with white ​ashi. ​It is believed that upon wearing this attire, the lha becomes capable of entering the body of the​ lha-pha a​nd thereby speculate the cause of the sickness in the patient brought before him. ​The lha-pha exits his own level of consciousness and enters a trance state after being occupied by the consciousness of the deity. He then chants several mantras through which the locals decipher the cause of the illness. In the middle of the ritual, locals also scatter grains of barley as a sign of belief and respect. The ritual ends by the lha-pha blessing the sick person with the ​phorang and giving them a religious thread to wear around the neck. The thread is usually cut out from the ​ashi and is believed to ward off evil spirits and medical illnesses.

Furthermore, some people that I talked to in Pin Valley believe that illnesses not only have origins in malfunctioning biological procedures but can sometimes be caused by evil spirits, evil energy or ​gongmu as known locally. The locals believe ​gongmu to be an intrinsic part of some people. Some call it the semba loosely translated as part of a soul of a person. When the ​gongmu leaves a person’s body and takes possession of another, the latter speaks in the voice of the former and becomes possessed. The affected person later becomes sick for a prolonged time. However, the person from whom the ​gongmu gets passed on is often unaware of it. Some locals claim that this inability to be aware of and have control over this form of evil energy is a repercussion of the karma the person performed in their previous life. Although the possession of spirits is similar to the ritual of lha-pha,the former results in an illness while the latter is an attempted ritual to cure the illness and ward off the evil spirits. It is at instances of these kinds of illnesses that the ​lha-pha is consulted. The ​lha-pha has supernatural powers through which he can make sense of the origin of the illness; whether the person is suffering because of evil spirits and evil energy or because of malfunctioning bodily processes. It is not clear whether the affected person becomes possessed or suffers from a kind of psychological disorder that compels her or him to behave weirdly. However, local witnesses of such incidents claim otherwise. They strongly believe in the existence of ​gongmu,​ its possession by some people and the repercussions that its release can entail.

Perhaps, because of lack of immediate health-care centres and ignorance about the bodily processes and functions, people of Spiti Valley have found explanations in alternative sources. But, when one actually witnesses the ritual carried out by the ​lha-pha​, it becomes hard to make the above claim too, because everything in the moment seems so logical, so happening and so near to truth. However, owing to geographical isolation and the specks of development that the region experiences from time to time in terms of healthcare, education and transport facilities, it becomes credible to claim that such factors have contributed to the ignorance and thereby attribution of bodily illnesses to spirits and evil energy. Keeping these rituals and local explanations in mind, one can claim that Spiti Valley is a place occupied with the concept of ‘enchantment’. Adam Mohr in his book ‘​Enchanted Calvinism’ defines ‘enchantment’ as being characterized by the presence of (a) charismatically endowed humans such as magicians, sorceress and shamans (b) supernatural explanations of the world and its events and, c) belief in spirits and supernatural forces. The people of Spiti Valley have supernatural explanations for some of the bodily illnesses that befall them. Their attributions to these illnesses or shortly to the ​gongmu is however, beyond sensory perception.

However, with the reach of biomedicine in the valley, the belief and rituals associated with the lha have dwindled. In Pin Valley, there are only six ​lha-pha who carry out the ritual of divination and healing. On asking one of the locals his opinions about this declining belief, he said, “Nowadays, people are not ready to take these hereditary roles as they don’t have any passion or belief in it. People are becoming detached from the religious and spiritual world and are in search of only wealth”. But I think the reason is more complicated than the mere decline of interest. Earlier, people used to consult the village ​lha-pha for every sickness that they experienced. These days, people go to the primary health centres to receive relevant medicines. They know that when they get a toothache, there are germs in their teeth eating away their enamel that they can combat by undergoing cavity cleaning processes in a hospital. The social force of science and the medicine resulting from it has reduced their belief in the charismatically endowed humans or ​lha pha who can enter alternative states of consciousness and determine the origin of their illness. The lha that gets inside the body of ​lha-pha cannot be seen. Whenever the locals have a backache or a leg ache, they can get x-rays and know what’s wrong with their muscles or bones through empirical observation and explanations. Therefore, I argue that the disenchantment and the decline of consultancy from ​lha-pha is because of the introduction of science and biomedicine in the region which has reduced natural phenomenon to calculation thereby disputing any kind of explanation that cannot be empirically observed.

Another probable reason for the dwindling of consultancy from ​lha-pha and its subsequent rituals might be the development of functional trade routes through which the Spitians export their cash crop, green peas. Earlier Spitians were not so experienced in agriculture and production of various agricultural goods. The fields growing green peas used to be infected with insects and the locals knew of no alternative ways to combat this problem. Therefore, in order to prevent all kinds of calamity and ensure successful harvesting of full yield of crops, the farmers undertook extra measures of offering prayers and conducting ceremonies to propitiate the local deity. The fields face the risk of water shortage, infection from various insects and troubles caused by birds. After the ploughing season, the birds often exacerbate the problem of crop growth by scattering seeds in the fields. They are often seen flying in clusters around the village and the fields and continue to be a threat to the fields from the growing of tender shoots to the end of the agricultural operation, putting grains in the barns. The farmers must therefore protect the fields from such catastrophes by conducting special ceremonies in the lha-khang of the village. One such ceremony​ byar bya kha gag-che ​literally translated as shutting the mouths of the summer birds, is celebrated. After the ploughing of the fields and sowing of the seeds is over, a festival is held in the ​lha-khang of the local deity. The ​lha-pha enters the trance state and the spirit of the lha enters him. All the villagers gather in the temple to witness this ceremony and recite prayers to the lha for rain and healthy crops. They also pray that the fields should be safe from the birds who might eat away tender plants. Therefore, through this ceremony, they pray that the birds of the mouths be shut up. After the prayer is sung, all the names of the villages in Pin Valley are taken along with the names of all fields in the villages. The local men also prepare sculptures of birds with flour or soil which are later buried under the soil. Through this ceremony they believe that the local deity would be pleased and would protect the fields of the valley from harmful birds. The people sing:

byar gi bya kun bya-ka-lag gungi bya kun bya-ka-lag

The prayer is translated as:
Birds of the summer, may their mouths be shut. Birds of the winter, may their mouths be shut.

However, nowadays, this ceremony is hardly performed. One reason I believe for this is because of the extensive use of fertilizers and pesticides that have reached the valley as a result of capitalism and development of better trade routes. The crops have lesser risks of getting infected with insects and birds in the valley. After the seeds have sprouted, the locals spray pesticides and insecticides which prevent the birds from causing catastrophes in the field. It is ploughing season in village Khar of Pin Valley and at most other villages now at this time of the year (May) and the sowing of the seeds is done. But the village ​lha-khang or temple is locked. People no longer carry out the ceremony ​byar bya kha gag-che. N​or do they carry out elaborate ceremonies and prayers and watch the ​lha-pha get possessed by the local deity. The decline of these practices is perhaps because of scientific solutions that people have found to the problems regarding their agricultural output. Moreover, as Spiti Valley is categorized as a Scheduled Tribes region, the locals get subsidies on the fertilizers and pesticides that they purchase from the market. Such state-society nexus through production of resources and network of capitalism and trade routes has lessened the occurrence of supernatural explanations, practices and rituals in the region. The Valley has therefore become partially disenchanted as a result of the social forces of biomedicine and capitalism sanctioned by the state.

The reason I say ‘partially disenchanted’ is because some locals in the region still believe in the existence of the ​gongmu​. The ​gongmu seems to be a supernatural occurrence that seems to be beyond the comprehension of people who are dictated by the rational discourse of science and visual perception. But it is still a concept, occurrence and moreover an evil energy that locals believe in strongly and claim to be afraid of. Even when I took out the name ​gongmu to enquire the locals about it, they seemed rather scared and disapproving of my act as they believed calling to the name would invite it. The ​gongmu therefore, continues to be an interesting topic to dwell into further and mull over in the Spitian paradigm of belief. However, rituals, ceremonies and health consultancy from the ​lha or the local deity have certainly dwindled over time.

Although Spiti is still a highly enchanted place, existence of some rituals and practices propitiating spirits and local deities has vanished with time. The two social forces that dominantly affect the decline of enchanted practices in the region are biomedicine and capitalism. Reach of biomedicine through narrow roads into this valley has enlightened the people about bodily processes and the reasons for its malfunctioning at certain times. This has compelled them to rely more on the medicines given in hospitals rather than on the consultancy of the village ​lha-pha who cures through possession of the spirit of village lha. Furthermore, transport of pesticides and fertilizers through better routes and government subsidies has escalated the agricultural output thus reducing their dependency on the village ceremonies and ​lha rituals that pray for bounty production and protection of the field from calamities. As a result, these two social and modern forces of biomedicine (nurtured through methods of science) and capitalism (sanctioned by the state) has made Spiti Valley quite a disenchanted place.