This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Sarnaism's worship has a fixed physical form: the sacred grove, called Sarna in general and Jaherthan specifically among Santals, a stand of sal and mahua trees left standing at the edge of a village precisely because it is understood to be where the village deities dwell. Marang Buru, Singbonga or Gram Deota by different regional names, along with Dharti Ayo, the earth goddess, are worshipped there rather than in any constructed temple, and a pahan, a village ritual specialist rather than a member of any priestly caste, conducts the twice yearly ceremonies at the grove, which include animal sacrifice as part of the offering.
This is a living, numerically substantial faith rather than a residual folk practice: India's 2011 census recorded nearly five million Sarnaism adherents, concentrated in Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal, and Santals make up just under a third of that total alongside several other Adivasi communities who hold the same grove based worship under their own names for it.
What Sarnaism does not yet have is its own line on India's census form. Adherents are folded into the Hindu category by default unless they specify otherwise, a classification many reject as inaccurate to what they practice. Jharkhand's state legislative assembly passed a unanimous resolution in 2020 asking the central government to create a distinct Sarna religion code ahead of the next national census, a campaign that treats accurate counting itself as part of the faith's claim to be recognized as its own religion rather than a variant of another one; the central government had not granted it as of this entry.