‘Kirat Mundhum: Of Earth and Ancestors’ tracks Kirat people, an indigenous Himalayan civilization that existed even before Vedic civilization and whose culture forms identities today. The book relates the spiritual and cultural recollection of a group of people whose set of worldviews is basically naturalistic, genealogical, and cosmic, according to the oral tradition, mythic narrative, archaeological evidence, and ritual customs. There are nine chapters of the book, and the book starts with a close examination of the geographical ancestry of Kirats and old dynasties. It analyzes their active interactions with other civilizations around them, including the Vedic culture, through written and oral accounts. The evidence suggests that the Kirats remain inseparable from their homelands, sacred forests, and the natural order. Kirat's theology centers around worshipping nature, making contact with spirits, and believing in ancestors. The spiritual organization of the Kirat religion is exposed even in the literature, laying stress especially on such names of deities as Yuma Sammang, Theba Sammang, and 'Tangri, as well as birth, death, and reincarnation. The Kirat people construct this cosmology by utilizing prayers, mantras, and myths found in their holy oral literature, Mundhum. The text says that other ritualists, such as the Nackhong, Samba, and Phedang, govern the physical and the spiritual worlds. The book discusses the religions, languages, oral literature, dances, folklore, social organizations, and exclusive ecological knowledge of the Kirat people. The book discusses these traditions in terms of their past and present, as well as a worldview hypothesis that emphasizes harmony and reciprocity with the planet. The ancient yet crucial theory of equilibrium includes the concept of balance in the universe, the existence of an equilibrium between the intangible and physical, the idea of cosmic balance, Tong sum, Tong shim, and the role of Samba as a ceremonial technician. The latter chapters are about cultural revival and religious reform among the Kirat people, modern-day education and technology, and political identity. This work critically analyzes modern efforts to preserve and reuse Kirat religious practices in the context of globalization, environmental destruction, and cross-generational shifts, presenting Kirat cosmology as a form of environmental learning and spiritual modification. The present work, with its appendices of a select bibliography, glossary, and transliteration of ancient mantras, is a tribute but also a contribution to the scholarship of a living native traditionalism named Kirat: of earth and ancestors. The book is highly needed by a reader who would like to hear about indigenous research and spiritual ecology, Himalayan history, and the validity of ancestral knowledge systems in the 21st century.
