Tagalog religion
The last rank includes tao (mankind) which houses the kakambal[10] (literally twin; the first form of soul known as the living soul who wanders when the body is asleep), mga hayop (animals), halaman at puno (plants and trees), lamang lupa (supernatural beings of the land), and lamang dagat (supernatural beings of the waters).
According to the early Spanish missionaries, the Tagalog people believed in a creator-god named Bathala,[5] whom they referred to both as maylikha (creator; lit.
[3]Most scholars believed that Bathala (Chirino 1595–1602), Badhala (Plasencia 1589), Batala (Loarca 1582), or Bachtala (Boxer Codex 1590) was derived from the Sanskrit word bhattara or bhattaraka[14] meaning noble lord.
[15] It is believed that he lives in an abode called Kaluwalhatian,[8] which is an ancient Tagalog people's version of heaven, known as the sky realms and the court of Bathala.
Unlike Kasanaan, which is a 'village of grief and affliction', Maca is peaceful and filled with the joyous bounties good ancestral spirits deserve in the afterlife.
These ancestral spirit anitos can also be summoned by Bathala to aid their relatives and descendants in special cases, usually through dreams or flickers of light.
According to Scott, a careful search of sources from the 1500s reveals that there was no single word in Tagalog for the other deities to whom Bathala was superior: when necessary, Spanish lexicographers referred to them all as anito.
These ancestral spirit anitos can be called upon by his or her descendants, relatives, friends, or stern followers in aid of a task.
However, the approval of Bathala is needed first so that the ancestral spirit may be allowed to leave Maca and aid a person through dreams or apparitions.
Popular ancestral spirits that are called upon are katalonans, datus, lakans, expert craftsmen, and brave warriors who have passed away and are believed to have journeyed to Maca successfully.
The Tagalog cosmic beliefs is not exempted from the moon-swallowing serpent myths prevalent throughout the different ethnic peoples of the Philippines.
[27] Owing to the limitations of language and of personal religious biases, Spanish chroniclers often recorded different interpretations of Tagalog words relating to worship.
They offer the idol some of the food which they are eating, and call upon him in their tongue, praying to him for the health of the sick man for whom the feast is held.
This manganito, or drunken revel, to give it a better name, usually lasts seven or eight days; and when it is finished they take the idols and put them in the corners of the house, and keep them there without showing them any reverence.Demetrio, Cordero-Fernando, and Nakpil Zialcita[5] observe that the Luzon Tagalogs and Kapampangans' use of the word anito, instead of the word diwata, which was more predominant in the Visayan regions, indicated that these peoples of Luzon were less influenced by the Hindu and Buddhist beliefs of the Madjapahit empire than the Visayans were.
The Tagalogs' cosmic beliefs were not exempted from the moon-swallowing serpent myths prevalent throughout the different ethnic peoples of the Philippines.
[29] Tagalog physical medicine includes the identifications of usog and of init at lamig ("heat and cold") which leads to pasma.
The deity who is most invoked in dambana practices is Bathala, the supreme god of the Tagalog people who controls non-deity anitos and the tigmamanukan omens.
Overall, everything in nature is considered as sacred in Tagalismo, from caves, rivers, seas, lakes, mountains, trees, wind, sky, and so on.
Other sacred sites also include Tagalog places of death (ancient cemeteries), and temples (usually in the form of forts or enlarged huts with palisades).
According to San Buenaventura's dictionary,[24] the Tagalogs believed that the direction of a tigmamanukan flying across one's path at the beginning a journey indicated the undertaking's result.
It was also said that if a hunter caught a tigmamanukan in a trap, they would cut its beak and release it, saying "Kita ay iwawala, kun akoy mey kakawnan, lalabay ka."
When a person dies, the kakambal is ultimately transformed into the second form of the Tagalog soul, which is the kaluluwa (literally means spirit).
There are two reasons why nightmares occur, the first is when the kakambal soul encounters a terrifying event while traveling from the body, or when a bangungot creature sits on top of the sleeping person in a bid of vengeance due to the cutting of her tree home.
As physical evidence regarding the degree to which India influenced the Philippines prior to the Spanish is rather sparse, scholars have held differing views on this matter over the years.
Jocano (2001) notes:Except for a few artifacts and identified loanwords that have been accepted as proofs of Indian-Philippine relations, there are meager intrusive materials to sustain definite views concerning the range of Indian prehistoric influence in the country.
Regardless of how and when it actually happened, historiographers specializing in Southeast Asia note that this "influence" was cultural and religious, rather than military or political in nature.
Jocano furthers:The Philippines is geographically outside the direct line of early commerce between India and the rest of Southeast Asia.
Moreover, the island world of Indonesia, with Sumatra and Java controlling the traffic of trade, functioned as a sieve for whatever influence (cultural, social, and commercial) India might have had to offer beyond the Indonesian archipelago.[...
"[39]: 139 After reviewing threads of evidence for the various views concerning the date and mechanism of "Indian prehistoric influence in the country", Jocano concludes: Philippine-Indonesian relations during precolonial times became intensified during the rise of the Madjapahit Empire.
Vitaliano R. Gorospe, meantime, notes:even today especially in the rural areas, we find merely the external trappings of Catholic belief and practice, superimposed on the original pattern of pre-Christian superstitions and rituals.
