Donyi-Polo

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Donyi-Polo is the designation given to a revivalist new religious movement of animistic and shamanic orientation, formalised among the Tani and other Tibeto-Burman ethnic groups of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam in Northeast India from the late 1960s onwards. The name Donyi-Polo means 'Sun-Moon'; it was adopted as the brand of the movement during its revitalisation and institutionalisation, which occurred in response to the growth of Christianity in the region and to allow for possible absorption into Hinduism. In scholarly literature, Donyi-Polo is generally characterised as a reformist or revivalist movement rather than as a continuous traditional religion, and is distinguished from the older, decentralised animistic beliefs and oral mythology of the Tani peoples that preceded it. Anthropologist Sarit Kumar Chaudhuri describes it as a reformist movement initiated by the Tani group from the late 1960s, with most of its institutional forms (prayer halls, hymn books, deity images, weekly congregational...

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