A discourse on the religious practices of the Rabha Community of West Bengal, India Sarkar Arpita*, Dr. Mistri Tapas** *Research Scholar, Department of Geography, The University of Burdwan, West Bengal **Assistant Professor in Geography, The University of Burdwan, West Bengal Online published on 1 August, 2019. Abstract Religion becomes the important part of the human society since the dawn of the civilization. The Rabha is a scheduled tribe community belonging to the Indo-Mongoloid group of people. In West Bengal, they mainly settled in Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar district. The Rabha community has magnificent traditional beliefs and social practices. With selected structured questionnaire, field survey and interactions with the inhabitants of the community the present study partakes to understand the actual form and position of the religion along with the transition and trends of changes in religion of the Rabha community in the segregated parts of the west Bengal. It is observed that their traditional religious philosophy is mainly based on Animism. But the influence of Hinduism and Christianity has a far reaching impact on the religious tradition and structure of the Rabhas. Besides the Rabha society have also constantly changes in the process of Hinduism, Sanskritisation and Christianization (Singha, 2004). These changing trends have effects on their socio-cultural, economic, political life, social institution etc. There is a need of sensitive careful understanding to recognize the effects of religious changes on their daily life and social interactions. Top Keywords Religion, tradition, transition, Sanskritization, Christianization. Top |