The Sām- Ūpmā Mundhum Philosophy:
Subtitle: An Indigenous Framework for Mental Well-being and Decolonial Thought
Publisher: Hamro Idea, Biratnagar, Nepal
Published: 2025
Place of publication: Nepal
Format: Philosophy
Number of pages: 78
ISBN-13: 9789937-9810-9-5
Copyright date: 2025
Description: Preface

When we journey into the depths of human history, we find that stories of pain, forgetting, and the loss of the soul are not confined to one community—they are part of the shared experience of all human civilizations. However, the ways in which these experiences are understood, and the methods developed to overcome them, vary across cultures. Among the Kirat Limbu people of Nepal, such understanding has given rise to a profound, living, and indigenous path—the Sām-Ūpmā Mundhum.
Based on the spiritual and cultural traditions of Nepal's Kirat Limbu people, this book presents the Sām-Ūpmā Mundhum Philosophy—an indigenous framework for knowledge and healing. Emphasizing the connectivity of the soul (sām), the ritual of soul-calling (Ūpmā), and oral knowledge (mundhum), the system is philosophical, experiential, and holistic. Derived from centuries of lived experiences, ceremonies, chants and the intergenerational transfers, this philosophy is not merely a cultural narrative. It is an entire model of living, consciousness, suffering and healing.

The inspiration for this work comes from a strong will to preserve, express, and transmit a unique perspective generally lacking in scholarly publications and global mental health debates. Working in disciplines like public health, mental health, culture, and literature, writer found a clear gap between therapeutic approaches and the spiritual and psychological reality of indigenous people. Western psychiatry struggles to adequately explain or treat cultural types of grief, such as what the Kirat refer to as soul-loss. The vision for this ideology started to surface in that silence.

The Sām-Ūpmā Mundhum Philosophy holds that people comprise three linked components: the body, soul, and relational world. Psychological and spiritual imbalance can follow from losing one's soul (sām) via trauma, anxiety, spiritual crisis, or social isolation. Healing calls for a ritual and relational reconnection with oneself, the soul, the community, and the universe, not only medicine or talk therapy. Ūpmā, a ceremonial process calling the soul back, helps one to do this. These ceremonies are spiritual healing technologies rooted in cosmology and living philosophy, not merely cultural norms. 

This worldview revolves mostly on Mundhum, or oral information. Through chants, myths, stories, and ceremonial tales, Mundhum maintains and distributes ancient wisdom. It is a storehouse of therapeutic techniques, ethical lessons, and cultural memory. This book offers mundhum as an epistemological framework that questions accepted paradigms of scientific and philosophical knowledge, therefore transcending mere practice. This book seeks to introduce the Sām-Ūpmā perspective in an academic context, reflecting its indigenous roots and still being reachable for readers all around. Beginning with the Kirat people's historical and cultural background, the book focuses on the Limbu community and shows how mundhum functions as a philosophical, healing, and cultural guide. 

The chapters center on the symbolic and therapeutic functions of Sām, Ūpmā, and Mundhum, as well as how they help to provide a whole picture of personality and well-being. The dialogue between body and soul, a fundamental aspect of Kirat philosophy, often goes unnoticed in contemporary psychology. In this regard, the body is more than just a means of expression for the soul; it is also a communication partner, and suffering usually points to spiritual imbalance. 

This book offers a relative analysis of Sām-Ūpmā ideas with contemporary psychological models. Case studies reveal parallels between clinical illnesses, including dissociative disorders, trauma reactions, and grief and soul-loss experiences. These parallels offer a decolonial perspective on healing and interpretation rather than trying to include indigenous knowledge into Western categories. 

This book also offers a therapeutic strategy grounded in Sām-Ūpmā ideas. This method consists of a culturally grounded diagnostic process, ceremonial healing, narrative reconstruction, and community participation. Emphasizing restoring balance rather than treating symptoms, the method is holistic, interactive, and non-invasive. Emphasizing social ethics, environmental consciousness, and spiritual integration, it questions the biological model. 

Finally, writer offers a general synthesis of the philosophy. The Sām-Ūpmā Mundhum philosophy offers a meaningful voice amid a period of global mental health crises, spiritual alienation, and cultural fragmentation and helps preserve indigenous epistemology. From an indigenous standpoint, it offers the purpose of life, completion, and caring. It holds that rather than simply in empirical data or abstract thought, truth can be found in relationships, stories, rites, and experiences. 

Writing this book has been an academic, spiritual, and very personal experience. It is a case study of intellectual decolonization, philosophical invention, and cultural preservation. Not only will the Limbu community gain from this effort, but also academics, clinicians, and seekers searching for more complete, meaningful, and relational approaches to health and well-being. 

This book is for the elders, healers, storytellers, and ancestors preserving the Mundhum legacy. The researcher is grateful for the teachers, communities, and readers continuing to listen to the quiet knowledge of the soul relevant to the developing field of decolonial, culturally grounded approaches to mental health.

This work is not only a tribute to ancestral knowledge and cultural resilience but also an invitation to scholars, therapists, and thinkers around the world to engage with a philosophy that is both ancient and urgently relevant. It is a call to listen—not just to clinical voices, but to the ancestral whispers carried through ritual, story, and the human longing for wholeness.
Table of contents: title: Table of Contents; title: Sām-Ūpmā Mundhum:	i; title: Copyright	ii; title: Preface	iii; title: Author’s Note	vii; title: Table of Contents	ix; title: Chapter 1: Introduction	1; title: 1.1 Kirat-Indigenous Soul, Knowledge	1; title: 1.2 Fundamental Ideas	1; title: 1.3 Intellectual Organization	2; title: 1.4 Modern Importance	3; title: 1.5 Possible Uses	4; title: Chapter 2: The Emergence of a Philosophy	6; title: 2.1 The Origin	6; title: 2.2 Importance of indigenous worldviews	7; title: 2.3 The Historical and Cultural Context	9; title: Chapter 3: Core Concepts	12; title: 3.1. Sām: Conscious Vitality and the Soul	12; title: 3.2. Ūpmā: A Soul-Restoring Cultural Approach	13; title: 3.3. Mundhum:	13; title: 3.4. Interrelationship of the Three Concepts	15; title: 3.5. Therapeutic and Symbolic Roles	15; title: 3.6. Conceptual Framework	19; title: 3.7 Philosophical Significance	21; title: Chapter 4: Philosophical Structure	22; title: 4.1. Ontology:	22; title: 4.2. Epistemology:	23; title: 4.3. Theory of Pain and Recovery	24; title: 4.4. Ethics of Care and Responsibility	24; title: Chapter 5: The Cultural Power of Mundhum	26; title: 5.1. Mundhum: Oral to Cosmological Thought.	26; title: 5.2. Mundhum and the Soul:	27; title: 5.3. The Conservation of Cultural Existence	27; title: 5.4. Dialogue Between Body and Soul	28; title: 5.5. The healing power of song.	29; title: 5.6 Conclusion	29; title: Chapter 6: Soul Loss Experiences — Case Studies	31; title: 6.1. Cultural and Emotional Aspects 	31; title: 6.2. A Case Study:	31; title: 6.3 A Case Study:	32; title: 6.4. Collective Psychology: Community Healing	32; title: 6.5. Insights and Reflections	33; title: 6.6. Soul Loss Case Studies	33; title: Chapter 7: Positioning SUMP in Global Philosophy	36; title: 7.1. The Power of Indigenous Thought	36; title: 7.2. Philosophical Convergences:	37; title: 7.3. Decolonial Epistemology:	37; title: 7.4. Toward a Pluralist Philosophy of Healing.	38; title: Chapter 8: Possibilities and Challenges	39; title: 8.1. The possibilities	39; title: 8.2. Challenges	40; title: 8.3 Enabling the inclusive development	40; title: Chapter 9: SUMP and Contemporary Mental Health	42; title: 9.1. Approaches to Healing:	42; title: 9.2. Psychology of the Soul and Relationship	42; title: 9.3. Ritual and Sām-Ūpmā:	43; title: 9.4. Nature of Healing:	43; title: 9.5. Alluvium, Complementarity,	43; title: Chapter 10: Comparative Analysis	45; title: 10.1 Philosophical backgrounds:	45; title: 10.2 Paradigms:	45; title: 10.3 Conceptualisation of Mental Illness	46; title: 10.4 Healing Approaches:	47; title: 10.5 The Role of the Healer/Therapist:	47; title: 10.6 Concept of the Self:	48; title: 10.7 Cultural and Ecological Contexts:	48; title: 10.8 Implications for Global Mental Health:	49; title: 10.10 Conclusion	49; title: Chapter 11. A Two-Decade Reflection	50; title: Chapter 11: Conclusion	54; title: 12.1. Life, soul, and healing in a message.	54; title: 12.2. Recovery of the Soul:	55; title: 12.3. Interlacing Threads of Bonding	55; title: 12.4. Decolonial Global Thought	56; title: 12.5. An Invitation to The World	56; title: 12.6 Final Reflection	56; title: References	57; title: Annex-A	60; title: Soul-Calling Song	60; title: Author's Background and Works	63