VITALITY AND DEPRESSION, THE CONCEPT OF SAYA AS AN INSTITUTION IN EAST NEPAL

All indigenous tribal rituals of the Lohorung Rai are performed to 'raise saya', that is to raise that part of a person which is seen as being intimately involved in a relational process with ancestors and the time of origin. The paper looks at how the complex concept of saya can be seen as an institution in Lohorung society, acting as a symbolic code, a model of behaviour and a pattern for tradition. Lohorung themselves do not formulate as a separate arena of values and meaning all that commentators want to call religious and since their world view is rooted in inter-relatedness between human beings, nature and superhuman beings, the paper questions the appropriateness of religion as an interpretive framework within which to understand the Lohorung material. The problem with the term 'religion' is that it underestimates the force of this inter-relatedness which the notion of saya highlights. © 1996 Academic Press Limited.