Asur

Clans and Kinship

Risley (1891) recorded thirteen totemic septs. A man may not marry a woman of his own sept, and may not eat, cut or injure the plant or animal whose name his sept bears. Two septs, Basriar (bamboo) and Mukruar (spider), also occur among the Kurmi. He gives majhi and parja as titles. Adult marriage was usual in his time, though some families were taking up infant marriage, and polygamy was allowed. The sources used for this page do not describe Asur village institutions or say how descent is traced.

The thirteen septs Risley lists for the Asur (1891, vol. II, Appendix I, p. 2), in his order, with his glosses. One of the two scans drops Kerketa; the other has all thirteen.

In the Official Lists

• Scheduled Tribe

  Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal

  Listed as: Asur

  Entered as 'Asur, Agaria' in Jharkhand and Bihar (Census 2011 tables). In Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, Asur is one of the names within the Gond entry.

Checked against the 2011 census table of each state and Wikipedia's compilation of the order; amendments after 2011 were not checked. The PVTG list reproduced from the 2019 PIB release names the Asur for Bihar and Jharkhand.

Checked on 2026-11-07 against the sources below. The lists are amended from time to time and can differ by district; for a certificate, the current order or the state's list is what counts.

Name and Origin

Roy (1912) records that the Asuras, whom he calls kinsmen of the Mundas, name Dhaulagir and Mainagir as the hills where they once lived. He read the Munda legend of Lutkum Haram and Lutkum Buria as the memory of a struggle in which the iron-smelting Asuras were worsted and withdrew to the far west of the Ranchi district. Risley (1891) noted that Dalton linked the tribe with the Asuras whom, in Munda tradition, Sing Bonga destroyed, while Jellinghaus thought the legend referred instead to an older people of miners and temple-builders. These are scholars' readings of legends.

History

In the counts of 1872 and 1881 that Risley (1891) gives, there were only a few thousand Asuras, in Lohardaga, Hazaribagh, Manbhum, the Santal Parganas and the Tributary States, and he described them as living almost entirely by smelting iron. His appendix lists the Agaria, Birjia, Kolh-Asur, Lohra-Asur and Paharia-Asur as sub-tribes. The 2011 census enters the Asur together with the Agaria in Jharkhand and Bihar, and they are among the PVTGs of both states.

Faith and Worship

Risley (1891) wrote that little was known of Asur religion: they worshipped Sing Bonga, the supreme deity of most Munda-speaking tribes, did not know Marang Buru by that name, and worshipped the great hills near them under other names.

Deities named in the sources: Sing Bonga

Customs

Risley (1891) records that the Asur married outside the sept, usually as adults, that polygamy was allowed, and that divorce was easy. The sources used for this page say little more about Asur rites of passage.