The confession of sins is thrice repeated. There an elder of the tribe, standing at the head of the corpse, recites or chants a long list of sins such as any Badaga may commit, and the people repeat the last word of each line after him. ” Among the Badagas of the Neilgherry Hills in Southern India, when a death has taken place, the sins of the deceased are laid upon a buffalo calf.For this purpose the people gather round the corpse and carry it outside of the village. In his book, THE GOLDEN BOUGH – A STUDY IN MAGIC AND RELIGION (1922) Sir James George Fraser (1854 – 1941) mentioned in Chapter LV the following :. What gave more satisfaction is the fact that in some villages, it was comparitively young people who conducted this prayer and they had no hesitation to refer and recite from a written source so that they did not leave out any part.įor the original source I have consulted Dr.Rams (given in ) and Nakkubetta Monthly (1979 issue) and my own research.įor more details with photographs go here Badaga funeral prayer in audioĮver since I became aware of the verses of ‘Karu Harachodhu’, I felt how nice it would be if these beautiful words could be given in English so that the present day youngsters could understand one of the most important and significant part (prayer) of Badaga funeral rites. That, precisely, is what makes this prayer very special.īut one redeeming factor is that though some of the sequence and the wordings changed from village to village, the broad essence was kept in tact. May be this is due to the fact every word and sentence could be interpreted in many different ways.

Hence, the difficulty in the translation. What surprised me is that NO ONE could give me the exact and complete meaning of these verses. In the process of translation, I interacted with a large number of community elders and in some cases, the very people who recited this prayer during funerals.

‘Karu Haruchodhu’ – Transference of sins to a bull calfĮver since I became aware of the verses of ‘Karu Harachodhu’, I felt how nice it would be if these beautiful words could be given in English so that the present day youngsters could understand one of the most important and significant part (prayer) of Badaga funeral rites.

Badaga love marriage