"I Exist Therefore You Exist, We Exist Therefore They Exist": Narratives of Mutuality between Deities (Yul-Lha Gzhi Bdag) and Lhopo (Bhutia) Villagers in Sikkim

Abstract

This article engages with the presence, personalities, and lives of yul lha gzhi bdag (protective and guardian deities) who reside with the Lhopo (Bhutia) community in Sikkim, India.Informed by fieldwork, and through narratives, observations, and experiences, I illustrate and discuss how interactions and connections between villagers and deities are shaped by principles of relationality and mutuality.After discussing the various meanings and manifestations yul lha gzhi bdag take on in diverse Himalayan contexts, I illustrate through discussions of rituals, practices, beliefs, and narratives how the 'mundane' routines and lifeworld of the Lhopo villagers variously connect with, and derive meaning from, the supernatural world that surrounds them.I argue, however, that this is not a one-way process but that deities similarly rely on villagers to derive and validate their existence in the world.This mutuality, however, increasingly finds itself under strain as a result of social processes of modernity, globalization, changing relations with land, religious conversion, and competing forms of educational and medical knowledge, on which I reflect in the conclusion.

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