Bonpo Priests and Spirit Mediums in Bhutan

Bonpo priests and spirit mediums represent the oldest continuous religious tradition in Bhutan, predating the introduction of Buddhism by centuries. The bonpo (བོན་པོ་) are ritual specialists who perform exorcisms, burial rites, divination, and propitiation ceremonies directed at local deities and territorial spirits. Alongside them, spirit mediums known as pawo (དཔའ་བོ་, male) and pamo (དཔའ་མོ་, female) enter trance states to channel deities, ancestors, and protective spirits, serving as oracles and healers. A third category, the jomo (ཇོ་མོ་), are female religious practitioners who combine mediumship with ascetic practice. These figures remain central to daily life in many Bhutanese communities, where indigenous spiritual beliefs coexist in a complex syncretism with the dominant Drukpa Kagyu Buddhist tradition.^[1][2]

Bhutan's pre-Buddhist spirituality, known locally as Bon chos, centres on the relationship between human communities and the natural world, which is understood as inhabited by a wide range of territorial deities (yul lha), water spirits (lu), and elemental beings associated with mountains, rivers, forests, and the earth itself. The bonpo and spirit mediums serve as intermediaries between these forces and the human communities that depend on their goodwill for agricultural fertility, livestock health, and protection from natural disasters.^[3]

Bon: The Pre-Buddhist Substrate

The term "Bon" in the Bhutanese context refers broadly to the indigenous religious practices that existed before the arrival of Buddhism in the seventh and eighth centuries. Unlike the organised Bon religion of Tibet, which developed its own monastic institutions and scriptural canon, Bhutanese Bon is primarily a collection of local ritual traditions oriented toward practical, this-worldly goals: ensuring the fertility of fields and livestock, averting natural calamities, healing illness caused by spirit affliction, and guiding the dead to favourable rebirths.^[3]

Early Bon in Bhutan emphasised the veneration of local deities associated with specific landscape features — mountain peaks, river confluences, large trees, and unusual rock formations. These deities were understood as animating the physical environment and as capable of both blessing and punishing human communities depending on whether proper ritual protocols were observed. This worldview persists in contemporary Bhutan, where construction projects routinely include propitiation ceremonies for the local deities of the site, and where illness or misfortune is frequently attributed to the displeasure of territorial spirits.^[4]

The Bonpo: Ritual Specialists

The bonpo is a ritual specialist who performs ceremonies outside the Buddhist monastic framework. Unlike Buddhist monks, who undergo formal ordination and belong to an institutional hierarchy, bonpo are typically laypeople who have inherited their knowledge through family lineages or acquired it through apprenticeship. Their primary functions include:

• Exorcism: Bonpo perform rites to expel malevolent spirits believed to cause illness, madness, or misfortune. These ceremonies often involve the construction of ritual effigies (to) into which the offending spirit is lured and then symbolically expelled or destroyed.
• Burial and funerary rites: In some communities, particularly where pre-Buddhist customs remain strong, bonpo oversee aspects of the death ritual, including the preparation of the corpse and the performance of rites to guide the deceased's consciousness through the intermediate state (bardo).
• Divination: Bonpo use various methods — dice, butter lamps, grain scattering, and the observation of natural phenomena — to diagnose the spiritual causes of problems and to determine the appropriate ritual remedy.
• Propitiation: Regular offerings to local deities, including the burning of incense (sang), the placement of prayer flags, and the sacrifice of symbolic substitutes, are performed to maintain the goodwill of territorial spirits.

^[5][6]

Pawo, Pamo, and Jomo: Spirit Mediums

Distinct from the bonpo are the spirit mediums — pawo (male), pamo (female), and jomo (female ascetic practitioners) — who serve as channels through which deities and spirits communicate with the living. During trance sessions, a pawo or pamo is believed to be temporarily possessed by a local deity, a protective spirit, or the spirit of a deceased person, who then speaks through the medium to diagnose illness, reveal the cause of misfortune, or provide guidance on ritual action.^[1][2]

The calling to become a pawo or pamo is typically involuntary. Individuals may experience spontaneous trances, unexplained illness, or visions that are interpreted as signs that a deity wishes to use them as a vehicle. An established medium then trains the initiate in the techniques of controlled trance and the ritual protocols that govern spirit communication. Once established, mediums serve their local communities on a regular basis, holding trance sessions in private homes or at village shrines.

The jomo occupy a somewhat different position. While they may also practise mediumship, jomo are primarily female renunciants who have taken informal religious vows and live in a state of semi-monastic simplicity. They often serve as healers and counsellors, combining spirit communication with herbal medicine and Buddhist prayer.

Integration with Buddhism

The relationship between Bon practices and institutional Buddhism in Bhutan has historically been one of absorption rather than opposition. When Buddhist masters such as Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava) arrived in the Himalayan region in the eighth century, they did not eliminate local spirit worship but rather incorporated it into the Buddhist framework by "taming" and "binding" local deities as protectors of the Buddhist dharma. Many of the deities propitiated by bonpo today are understood within the Buddhist schema as worldly protectors (jigten pai srungma) who have been bound by oath to serve Buddhism.^[4]

This syncretism means that many Bhutanese see no contradiction between consulting a Buddhist monk for one purpose and a bonpo or pawo for another. A family might invite monks to perform prayers for a deceased relative while simultaneously consulting a pawo to determine whether a displeased spirit is responsible for a family member's illness. Anthropological research confirms that Bon practices play a more prominent role in non-monastic, rural contexts than doctrinal Buddhism, permeating everyday decision-making in ways that formal Buddhist ritual does not.^[3]

Contemporary Status

Bonpo and spirit mediums continue to practise throughout Bhutan, though their visibility varies by region. In rural areas of central and eastern Bhutan, where access to monastic institutions is limited, bonpo and pawo remain the primary source of spiritual counsel. In urban centres such as Thimphu, the practice is less conspicuous but has not disappeared; pawo and pamo operate discreetly, and consultations are common even among educated Bhutanese.

The Bhutanese government and monastic establishment generally tolerate Bon practices as part of the national cultural heritage, though official discourse emphasises Buddhism as the defining spiritual tradition of the kingdom. Scholars such as Françoise Pommaret and Yonten Dargye have documented the persistence and vitality of these traditions, arguing that they constitute an essential and irreplaceable layer of Bhutanese religious life.

References

1. "Bhutan's Religious History in a Thousand Words." Mandala Collections, University of Virginia.
2. "Bhutanese Beliefs: Spirit Communication, Mediumship, and Spiritual Dimensions." The Experimental Medium.
3. "Bon Religious Practice in Bhutan." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History.
4. "Religion in Bhutan." Wikipedia.
5. "Ancient Bhutanese Bon Choid Rituals." HTNSL, 2017.
6. "Bon Religion." Facts and Details.