RAJMALA1929-001 - historical text
Tipra / Tripuri Ker-puja
Former Tripura State - Tripura ritual sphere - South Asia - Northeast India
Sacred / spirit
bhemra / bhamra Bengali; English translation
bhemra / bhamra: Chatterji's Romanization for the Ker-puja bamboo-slip bullroarer; Rajmala discusses bhemrai/bhomrai spellings.
Once the boundary of Ker-puja was proclaimed, the rite became a religious lockdown: nobody could enter or leave, and inside the sealed ground no one — not even the king — might wear shoes, light a fire, dance or sing. A household overtaken by a birth or a death paid a fine to cross the line. Into that enforced hush broke the bhemra, a broad bamboo strip whirled on a cord until it boomed bho bho, loud, deep and far-carrying — a ritualistic use of bull-roarers, the philologist Suniti Kumar Chatterji noted, 'not known in any Brahmanical worship.' A 1929 editorial commentary to Sri Rajmala describes Ker-puja as a rite for the welfare and safety of Tripura's realm.
At Ker-puja, a broad bamboo strip is pierced at one end and a cord is tied there. Holding the other end of the cord, it is rapidly whirled. When air strikes the strip it makes a bho bho sound; the sound is very loud, deep, and far-carrying.
Sri Rajmala, vol. 1 (1929), printed pp. 145-146, editorial note; working translation from the Bengali.
- Object
- Broad bamboo slat pierced at one end and corded through the perforation; whirled by holding the free end of the cord.
- Function
- Sounded at Ker-puja; the source places the observance first in the capital and later in hill villages.
- Map confidence
- medium - Present Tripura regional centroid used only as a ritual-sphere proxy; the source names neither a capital, village, nor findspot.
- Source location
- printed pp. 145-146; Internet Archive image leaf 311