Sacred hills of the Toda people of South India: A plea for world heritage status

Abstract-The Todas worship scores of hilltops where they believe their principal deities or clan-specific local gods reside. It is thus considered sacrilege even to point towards such a deity peak with one's finger. It is also no coincidence at all that the area in and around the Toda sacred-landscape, where their major hill deities are believed to reside, has come to constitute in recent times, the core of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. This is the very first biosphere reserve in all of India (1986). There is now an urgent need to have this region inscribed as a World Heritage site.