Chando (Ka Chando) — a solar name of unverified standing in Khasi tradition

Chando (Ka Chando) and the Khasi tradition called Niam Khasi

Overview — and the question this entry cannot yet answer

This entry exists because a name, Ka Chando, has been carried in this corpus for years as a Khasi sun-goddess, and because that attribution could not be substantiated. On 2026-09-29 a search was run for the name in community-published Khasi material, in Government of Meghalaya sources, in academic databases and on the open web. Nothing was found that documents it. The name has no article in the English Wikipedia, which reports of the search confirmed directly, and a search for the exact phrase returned nothing in any language. No claim about Ka Chando is therefore made in this entry. What follows is an account of the tradition in which the name was supposed to sit, drawn from the Khasi community's own published voice wherever that could be reached.

The tradition is called Niam Khasi, or by its adherents Ka Niam Tynrai (for the Khasis) and Niamtre (for the Pnar). A correspondent writing in The Shillong Times in January 2016 was explicit about the naming, and equally explicit that it is not theirs to rename: "our religion is not called Seng Khasi or Sein Raij but Ka Niam Tynrai for the Khasis and Niamtre for the Pnars" [S2].

The Government of Meghalaya's own description of the pre-conversion faith names a single supreme creator — "The Khasis are now mostly Christians. But before that, they believed in a Supreme Being, The Creator – U Blei Nongthaw and under Him, there were several deities of water and of mountains and also of other natural objects" [S4]. The sun is not named there among those deities of water, mountains and other natural objects.

Identity & Iconography

The tradition is not centred on a carved pantheon, and this is the single most important fact for anyone expecting an "iconography" section. What the community's own account gives instead is a set of four who are cared for within every clan: the Godhead (Ka Blei), the ancestress (ka ïawbei), the ancestor (thawlang) and the ancestral uncle (u suidnia). Together these four are called ka Dawïing, "the family cause". H. O. Mawrie, one of the pillars of the Seng Khasi, is quoted in The Shillong Times to the effect that when all four are satisfied with the clan, no devil, no evil spirit and no Dawlum — an external cause — can shake the clan [S1].

On Ka Iawbei, the same letter quotes Dr Helen Giri: she is "the goddess of the clan and the giver of covenants", and it is she who takes care of the living and the dead belonging to her kur under the protection of u Suidnia, the eldest ancestral maternal uncle of the clan [S1]. The letter reports this at second hand and does not identify Giri's work; a human reviewer should go to it directly before repeating the formulation.

Ka Chando has no documented form, no seat, no colour, no gender and no garland. This entry asserts none of those things, and the frontmatter fields that previously carried them have been cleared rather than softened.

Sacred Narrative — attested and legendary, kept apart

Attested in the sources fetched. The mythological original abode of the Khasi is Ki Hynñiewtrep, "the Seven Huts" [S7]. U Blei Trai Kynrad, God the Lord Master, distributed the human race into sixteen heavenly families called Khadhynriew Trep; seven of the sixteen were stuck on earth and the other nine remain in heaven [S6]. A heavenly ladder resting on the sacred Lum Sohpetbneng Peak allowed people to go freely to heaven until, by a trick, they cut a divine tree on Lum Diengiei Peak, and access was lost for ever [S6][S7]. A Khasi scholar writing in 2002 states the underlying conviction plainly: "The Khasis believe that this world is a temporal world and eternity lies only in God" [S3].

The tradition's own story about itself. The 2016 letters in The Shillong Times are a quarrel about who may define the tradition, and they are worth reading as testimony rather than as doctrine. Fabian Lyngdoh argues for Ka Niam Tynrai as the correct name and insists that the equating of Khasi faith with the kur is a Pnar position [S1][S2]. Both letters record a layman of the faith stating the case: "we do have such religious festivals like Ka Beh Deinkhlam, ka Shad Nongkrem, Ka Pomblang, etc that are collectively observed by the believers and followers of Ka Niam Khasi Niamtre" [S2].

What is not attested. Nothing in the sources fetched records a solar deity named Ka Chando, a solar myth, a solar festival, or a female principle in Khasi cosmology. The claim that the Khasi sun is female and is the primary visible form of U Blei is not repeated here, because the sources that would have to carry it are not ones I could reach — and under SOURCES_POLICY rule 4 an outsider's account may not stand in for the community's own voice on a living tradition.

Worship Practice

The practice documented by the community is clan's rites, not temple rites. A Khasi, according to Mawrie's account as reported in The Shillong Times, "has no church, house or temple to worship God", and instead every clan has its own ïingseng ïingkhatduh — the residence of the youngest in the lineage — where the necessary rites and ceremonies of religion are performed with the clan's own ancestress, ancestor and ancestral uncle [S1]. Dr Giri is reported in the same letter to hold that the rites of a kur must be performed within the ambit of that kur and cannot be performed by another [S1].

The central rite concerns the dead. Bones are collected in the clan ossuary, the mawbah; Dr Homiwell Lyngdoh is cited for the belief that without it "the spirit of the dead would not find rest since he cannot meet his ancestral mother in the spiritual world in the house of God" [S1]. J. K. Tariang, a former president of the Seng Khasi, is cited for the same rule and for its cost: the ceremony has become difficult and expensive, so rites have been modified or dropped, and the elders' own remedy was "to obtain a sanction from God to do so, by means of divination" [S1].

On whether this is worship of ancestors, the community's own voice is careful. David Roy wrote in 1939 that in their lifetime the Khasis "pacified their deceased ancestors: u suidnia, ka ïawbei, and u thawlang by means of offerings"; the 2016 correspondent's response is that "in reality the Khasis never worshipped the spirits of ancestors, but reverently respected them as elders, Gurus or Saints, on whose intercession they relied upon" [S1]. That distinction — pacification and intercession rather than worship — is the tradition's own, made by a Khasi writer about his own practice, and it should not be flattened.

Offerings. The one offering that an official source documents is rice-beer: the district administration states that, like the other tribes of the North-East, the Khasis ferment rice-beer, and that "use of rice-beer is a must for every ceremonial and religious occasion" [S4]. The earlier corpus list of eggs, grain, mithun and fowl offerings has no source behind it and has been moved to pending_facts.

Festivals. Three are named by a community source: Ka Beh Deinkhlam, Ka Shad Nongkrem and Ka Pomblang, described as collectively observed by the followers of Niam Khasi-Niamtre [S2]. Their lunar dates, durations and any dedication are not sourced here. The earlier entry attached this tradition to "Shad Suk Mynsiem" as a festival honouring a sun goddess; that framing has been removed, because the community source names the festival as Ka Shad Nongkrem and does not assign it to any deity.

Processions and vows. Nothing in the sources fetched documents a procession or a vow specific to a Khasi solar figure. The vratas and processions fields have not been invented.

Temple(s) / Seats

There is no located shrine to Ka Chando. What is documented at Mawphlang is a sacred grove, called locally Law Lyngdoh. A 1941 record in the Indian Forest Records: Botany states that the grove there was constituted by the Iangblah clan, a clan originating from Jaintia, to provide a home for a spirit named "U Basa" or "U Ryngkew" — names that indicate the spirit is regarded as keeper or defender of the land [S8]. The same 1941 record reports the belief that anyone who commits damage in the grove will be throttled to death by the spirit in residence; that is quoted here as what a 1941 forestry record states, not as a statement of present belief, and the belief is not endorsed.

Living Tradition Today

The tradition is a minority one, and its adherents are organised. The Seng Khasi was formed in 1899 by Niam Khasis of the "old faith" who followed the pre-conversion religion, and by 2021 it had more than 300 branches across the Khasi hills, with 23 November celebrated as Foundation Day in Shillong [S9]. Its assistant general secretary, Paia B. Synrem, put the organisation's purpose plainly: "Our organisation was essentially built to protect and preserve our faith from attack on our faith by religious thoughts and ideas brought in by the British. But we are not Hindus though some of our practices are similar" [S9].

Khasimon Phanbuh, a community leader, argues that the push for Khasi cultural assertion among Christian Khasis came "an indirect pressure" from the small but influential non-Christian Niam Khasi population [S9]. The mixing of faiths inside single matrilineal families is documented by the photographer Tarun Bhartiya's account of his own family: a writer and music producer, K. Mark Swer, describes funerals that were half Christian and half of the indigenous faith his father was born into, and says of the arrangement, "There's no big conflict. Lots of Khasi families have this mix" [S9].

The matrilineal structure itself is official fact, not folklore: descent runs through the mother, the father has an important but not descent-conferring role, and it is the youngest daughter, Ka Khadduh, who inherits, with succession passing to her elder sister and then to that sister's youngest daughter in default of daughters [S4]. How that structure relates to the clan's religion — the kur and Ka Iawbei — is a question the sources fetched raise but do not answer.

Regional Forms

The corpus tradition field distinguishes two labels, "Niam Khasi" and "Khasi". The sources fetched suggest these are better understood as one tradition with internal naming disagreement than as two forms: the January 2016 correspondence in The Shillong Times is precisely a dispute over whether the faith may be equated with the kur, and over the names Ka Niam Tynrai and Niamtre [S1][S2]. The Pnar (also written Syntung) and the Khasi are distinguished in the Government's own account of the region, and the 2016 letters treat their religious claims as overlapping and contested [S4][S1]. Nothing sourced describes a distinct "Khasi form" of a solar deity.

Known Limitations

The central one, stated plainly. No community-published source on "Ka Chando" was found, and none is cited here. Searches of The Shillong Times (which bot-walls direct requests and was read through the Internet Archive), the Government of Meghalaya's district sites, the North-Eastern Hill University's thesis repository, OpenAlex, the English Wikipedia, and the open web either returned nothing bearing the name, or returned only the pre-existing unsourced corpus text. SOURCES_POLICY rule 4 says to cite community-published material for a living tradition in place of an outsider's account; where no such material can be found, this entry says so rather than substituting one. The previous version of this file asserted a female sun-goddess, a shrine at Mawphlang, a mantra, a set of offerings and a five-stage chronology; none of that had a source, and it has been removed rather than softened into "tradition holds".

Second. The four Khasi community publications quoted inside [S1] — Mawrie's Ka Pyrkhat u Khasi, Dr Homiwell Lyngdoh's Ka Niam Khasi, David Roy's 1939 article, and J. K. Tariang's The Philosophy and Essence of Niam Khasi — were not consulted in their own right. Every word attributed to them here is the wording that the Shillong Times letter reports. They are listed so a reviewer can reach them.

Third. The 2002 Khasi-authored thesis [S3] is deposited as a scan whose text layer is too corrupt to quote beyond the first few pages. No page reference is offered, and the gloss the thesis gives for one of its own key terms could not be read reliably.

Fourth. The census-derived percentages of adherence are reported by a journalist from unnamed underlying data; the Census 2011 table was not verified, so no figures are repeated as fact.

Fifth. The Mawphlang grove's age, the festival durations, the lunar dates, the daily ritual cycle, the Lyngdoh's duties, and any vow or procession attached to a solar figure are all unsourced and are listed in pending_facts.

Sources

1. [S1] Fabian Lyngdoh, "The kur and religion among the Khasis", letter to the editor, The Shillong Times, 21 January 2016, read at https://web.archive.org/web/2020/https://theshillongtimes.com/2016/01/21/the-kur-and-religion-among-the-khasis/. Tier 1 — community-published (SOURCES_POLICY rule 4). Quoting H. O. Mawrie, Ka Pyrkhat u Khasi (reprint 2000), pp. 15–17; Dr Homiwell Lyngdoh, Ka Niam Khasi (reprint 2013), p. 168; David Roy, "Khasi Religion", Ka Syngkhong Jingtip II.4 (1939); J. K. Tariang, The Philosophy and Essence of Niam Khasi (2012), pp. 168–169; and Dr Helen Giri (work unidentified there).
2. [S2] Bah Fabian Lyngdoh, "Essence of Niam Tynrai Niamtre", letter to the editor, The Shillong Times, 19 January 2016, read at https://web.archive.org/web/2020/https://theshillongtimes.com/2016/01/19/essence-of-niam-tynrainiamtre/. Tier 1 — community-published.
3. [S3] Nidaris Lyngdoh, "Ka Niam (Khasi religion) and the concept of Dharma: a comparative study", doctoral thesis, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, 2002, https://dspace.nehu.ac.in/handle/1/12749. Tier 1 — community-authored. Scan; front pages only legible.
4. [S4] South West Khasi Hills District Administration, Government of Meghalaya, "History & Culture", https://southwestkhasihills.gov.in/history/ (accessed 2026-09-29). Tier 1, issuer's own page.
5. [S5] Iarington Kharkongngor, The Preparation for the Gospel in Traditional Khasi Belief, 1973, pp. 19–26. Tier 1 — community-authored. Located via [S12]; not consulted; a lead, not evidence.
6. [S6] Aurelius Kyrham Nongkinrih, Khasi Society of Meghalaya: A Sociological Understanding, Indus Publishing, 2002, pp. 130–131. Tier 1 — community-authored. Located via [S12]; not consulted directly.
7. [S7] Shakuntala Banaji, South Asian Media Cultures, Anthem Press, 2010, pp. 48 ff. Tier 1 — external scholarship. Located via [S12]; not consulted directly.
8. [S8] Forest Research Institute, Dehra Dun, "Indian Forest Records: Botany", vols 3–4, 1941, p. 161. Tier 1. Located via [S13]; not consulted directly.
9. [S9] Paramita Ghosh, "Missionary is not a popular word in India. But in the Khasi hills, it holds a different meaning", ThePrint, 16 October 2021, https://theprint.in/features/missionary-is-not-a-popular-word-in-india-but-in-the-khasi-hills-it-holds-a-different-meaning/751501/ (accessed 2026-09-29). Tier 2 — bylined journalism carrying attributable statements by Paia B. Synrem, Khasimon Phanbuh, Tarun Bhartiya and K. Mark Swer of the Seng Khasi.
10. [S10] Ka Pyrkhat u Khasi (H. O. Mawrie, reprint 2000); Ka Niam Khasi (Dr Homiwell Lyngdoh, reprint 2013); David Roy, "Khasi Religion" (Ka Syngkhong Jingtip II.4, 1939); The Philosophy and Essence of Niam Khasi (J. K. Tariang, 2012). Tier 2 — Khasi community publications, quoted but not consulted; all wording in this entry is that reported in [S1].
11. [S12] "Khasi people", Wikipedia, revision 1369078400, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Khasi_people&oldid=1369078400. Tier 2 — finding aid only (SOURCES_POLICY rule 5), used solely to reach [S5]–[S7].
12. [S13] "Mawphlang", Wikipedia, revision 1374867597, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mawphlang&oldid=1374867597. Tier 2 — finding aid only, used solely to reach [S8].