Religion Culture and History of Jharkhand

About the Book
This work is a detailed study of the religious practices, rituals and deities worshiped in the Santal Parganas region of modern Jharkhand. Though the central figure around which everything revolves in the Baidyanath Dham of Deoghar or in the entire region of Santal Parganas and its surroundings is the deity of Lord Baidyanath, one of the twelve Jyotirlingas of Lord Shiva, this work tries to explore the worship of several other local deities and its relationship with Lord Baidyanath. Along with this many other diverse ritual practices prevalent in the area have also been studied here. The book, thus studies and identifies a distinct mode of religion practiced in this area within the broad framework of Hinduism which has been defined as The Baidyanath Cult by the author. It is to be noted that for the first time this term The Baidyanath Cult has been coined in this book. The Shaiva and Shakta traditions of Hinduism have merged into one and it has also integrated several elements of the Vajrayana Buddhism and other local traditions. This book also demonstrate the process of integration at different levels taking place in the Indian society. Both the Little Tradition and the Great Tradition of this region have been carefully dealt with here. The cultural arena of this land reflects that the Sacred Complex of Baidyanath Dham (Deoghar), Basukinath Dham, Ajgaivinath Dham (Sultanganj) and their Cultural Specialists are the main agents of this integration process. They perform their roles by different Cultural Media discussed in this book. Along with the study of religion, this book also tries to reconstruct the Ancient History of Santal Parganas and its surroundings; from the Paleolithic period to the Early Medieval times. In fact, the Ancient History of this region has never been studied by any historian prior to this work. Though stray references related to this region occasionally appear in the academic studies focused on eastern part of India, but no full flagged study covering the history of Santal Parganas has come up so far. Hence, this work tries to fill this gap and may be regarded as the pioneering work on the religion, culture and history of Santal Parganas.

About the Author
Dr. A.N. Jha teaches History in Swami Shraddhanand College (University of Delhi). He has an extensive background in teaching undergraduate students for about three decades. His area of specialization is the Ancient Indian History. His research contributions are focused on the peripheral areas of Bihar, Bengal and Jharkhand during the Ancient and Early Medieval Period of India. His doctoral research on the Baidyanath Cult has been a pioneering work in studying the History of Ancient Santal Parganas. He is credited to have coined the term the Baidyanath Cult and is also known to have been the first person to have reconstructed the Ancient History of Santal Parganas. He has published numerous articles in refereed research journals and his contributions in the field have been widely acclaimed.