Bura Pennu (the Light-god / Sun-god)

Bura Pennu, also recorded as Bella Pennu or Boora Pennu, is the supreme deity of the Kondh (Kui- and Kuvi-speaking Dravidians of the Kandhamal highlands of Odisha), identified with the sun and with light. In the account collected by S. Charteris Macpherson in the 1840s and 1850s he is the creator who formed the earth and, taking the Earth-goddess Tari Pennu as his consort, engendered the remaining gods of rain, increase, hunting, war and boundaries. He is the source of all good; the religion turns on the dualistic opposition between his light and the earth's introduced evil. Later ethnographers note regional variation, with some western Kondh groups giving the creative role to other names, but the Bura-Tari pairing remains the structuring myth of the tradition.

Children

• Dinga Pennu (the Judge of the Dead)
• Loha Pennu (the Iron-god / War-god)
• Pidzu Pennu (the Rain-god)
• Sandi Pennu (the god of Boundaries)

Domains

• sun and light
• creation
• moral good

Powers

• to create the earth and engender the other gods
• to give light and uphold the moral good of the world

Epithets

• Bella PennuE. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. 2 (London: John Murray, 1871), ch. 17. (secondary)

Relations

• spouse: Tari Pennu (the Earth-goddess)Bura Pennu made Tari Pennu the Earth-goddess as his consort; their union and later estrangement structures the dualism of Kondh religion.S. Charteris Macpherson, 'An Account of the Religion of the Khonds in Orissa,' Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 13 (1852), pp. 216-274. (secondary)
• enemy: Tari Pennu (the Earth-goddess)After Tari Pennu introduced evil and rebelled, the light-god and the earth-goddess stand opposed as the two cosmic principles of good and evil.E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. 2 (London: John Murray, 1871), ch. 17. (secondary)

Sources

• Bura Pennu (Bella/Boora Pennu) is the supreme creative Sun-god or Light-god of the Kondh, maker of the earth and father of the lesser gods.: S. Charteris Macpherson, 'An Account of the Religion of the Khonds in Orissa,' Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 13 (1852), pp. 216-274. (secondary); E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. 2 (London: John Murray, 1871), ch. 17. (secondary)