Doying Bote (god of wisdom and knowledge)

Doying Bote is the deity of wisdom and knowledge in the religion of the Tani peoples, more fully described as the god of humans, of stories and of wisdom. He belongs to the bote class of benevolent male tutelary deities and is reckoned among the chief gods of the Donyi-Polo pantheon together with the Sun-Moon Donyi-Polo, the grain-goddess Kine Nane and the animal-lord Dadi Bote. In the institutionalized worship developed at Pasighat from the late 1980s he was among the first deities given anthropomorphic form, his image set beside that of Donyi-Polo on the altar. In myth he is one of the powers whose counsel the ancestor Abotani secures in his contest with the Epom.

Domains

• wisdom and knowledge
• stories and oral tradition

Powers

• to grant wisdom, knowledge and counsel to humankind

Epithets

• Doying BoteClaire S. Scheid, 'The Institutionalization of Tribal Religion: Recasting the Donyi-Polo Movement in Arunachal Pradesh,' Asian Ethnology 75, no. 2 (2016). (secondary)

Relations

• ally: Abotani (primeval ancestor of the Tani peoples)Doying Bote lends his wisdom to the ancestor Abotani in the latter's struggle against the Epom, one of several deities Abotani enlists.Claire S. Scheid, 'The "Jungle Lord" and the Natural Order: Adi Narratives About the Epom,' The Oriental Anthropologist 24, no. 1 (2024). (secondary)

Sources

• Doying Bote is the Tani (Adi) deity of wisdom, knowledge and stories, counted among the principal tutelary gods of the Donyi-Polo pantheon.: Claire S. Scheid, 'The Institutionalization of Tribal Religion: Recasting the Donyi-Polo Movement in Arunachal Pradesh,' Asian Ethnology 75, no. 2 (2016). (secondary); Claire S. Scheid, 'The "Jungle Lord" and the Natural Order: Adi Narratives About the Epom,' The Oriental Anthropologist 24, no. 1 (2024). (secondary)