Persa Pen, a great clan deity, and the wider array of pen, or clan gods, of Koya Punem, the indigenous religion of the Gond peoples of central India, one of the subcontinent's largest Adivasi communities, spread across Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Telangana and Odisha. Each Gond clan traditionally maintains its own pen and its own priest, so the pantheon is organised by lineage rather than held in common, and much of what outsiders recorded of it comes from twentieth century ethnography of individual Gond subgroups rather than from one unified account.
Facts
Structure
Structure of the PantheonLocal and lineage cults gathered under one name, with no single frame 1 Divine HeadshipNo sovereign; the gods act as peers 1 Succession Between Divine GenerationsOne divine generation; no succession between generations is recorded 1 Attestation
Era of AttestationHeld from the beginning in the tradition's own terms; documented in the outside record from the 19th century 1 Veneration TodayActively venerated in a living tradition 1 Cult
Principal Cult CentreNo single centre. Each clan keeps its pen in its own shrine, in the care of the clan priest 1 Organisation
Membership of the PantheonEvery place, clan and lineage adds its own 1 How Mortals Enter the PantheonAncestors and founders become objects of cult 1 Sources
Primary SourceOral tradition held within Gond clans, with the Koya Punem codifications published from the 20th century and published ethnography 1 Connections
Associated With
Its own cited description places the religion of the Gond peoples in central India.
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
This source names Maharashtra directly: "across Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Telangana and Odisha."
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
This source names The Pantheon directly: "its own pen and its own priest, so the pantheon is organised by lineage rather than held in common, and much of what outsiders recorded of it comes from twentieth century ethnography of individual..."
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Sources
1. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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