Gurbaba

Gurbaba (Gurubaba, 'the ancestral master') is the foremost creator-figure of Dangaura Tharu religion in the Dang valley of Nepal's inner Tarai. In the cosmogony recorded by Rajaure he is the first Tharu on earth, made initially as an ash-gourd without limbs or senses, which the supreme god completes member by member. Once whole he sends the earthworm Dudhia (and, in the Ashtimki tradition, a crab) into the underworld to bring back imperishable earth (amarmati); scattered upon the primeval water it congeals like curd in milk and becomes the land. Lonely thereafter, he creates the goddess Maiya as his wife, and the Tharu reckon themselves the descendants of this first couple. Krauskopff records his distant, transcendent abode at Harikabilas in the mountains, contrasting with the immanent goddess in the village. He is honoured each year in the Ashtimki wall-painting made at the village elder's house, which shows him sailing in a boat with his disciples through the unfolding stages of creation.

Domains

• creation cosmogony
• ancestry descent

Powers

• to raise the dry earth from the primeval waters
• to fashion the first woman as his consort

Epithets

• Guru Baba

Relations

• spouse: Maiya
• creator of: Maiya

Sources

• Drone P. Rajaure, 'Tharus of Dang: Tharu Religion', Kailash: A Journal of Himalayan Studies IX(1): 61-96 (1982).
• Christian McDonaugh, 'The Mythology of the Tharu: Aspects of Cultural Identity in Dang, West Nepal', Kailash 15(3-4): 191-206 (1989).
• Gisèle Krauskopff, Maîtres et possédés: les rites et l'ordre social chez les Tharu (Népal) (Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1989).