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ASSAM : |
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A Page from Charyapada: 7th-8th century Specimen of Assamese Literature |
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Assam..ASOM…AXOM.. , is a northeastern state of India with its capital at Dispur, in the outskirts of the city Guwahati. Located south of the eastern Himalayas, Assam comprises the Brahmaputra and the Barak river valleys and the Karbi Anglong and the North Cachar Hills with an area of 30,285 square miles (78,438 km²).
Assam currently is almost equivalent to the size of Ireland or Austria. Assam is surrounded by the rest of the Seven Sister States: Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Meghalaya. These states are connected to the rest of India via a narrow strip in West Bengal called the Siliguri Corridor or "Chicken's Neck".
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Tamulpanor Xorai Assam, A pair of areca nuts, betel leaves and a 'Gamosa' in a Xorai; this represents cultural symbolism of respect towards the recipient person by the person presenting it. |
Assam also shares international borders with Bhutan and Bangladesh; and cultures, peoples and climate with South-East Asia—important elements in India’s Look East policy. Assam became a part of British India after the British occupied the region following the Treaty of Yandaboo of 1826. The Assam Conflict takes place in the state.
Assam is known for Assam tea, large and old petroleum resources, Assam silk and for its rich biodiversity. It has successfully conserved the one-horned Indian rhinoceros from near extinction, along with the tiger and numerous species of birds, and it provides one of the last wild habitats for the Asian elephant. It is becoming an increasingly popular destination for wild-life tourism, and Kaziranga and Manas are both World Heritage Sites. Assam was also known for its Sal tree forests and forest products, much depleted now. A land of high rainfall, Assam is endowed with lush greenery and the mighty river Brahmaputra, whose tributaries and oxbow lakes provide the region with a unique hydro-geomorphic and aesthetic environment.
Assam was known as Pragjyotisha in the Mahabharata; and Kamarupa in the 1st millennium. Assam gets it name from the Ahom kingdom (1228-1826), then known as Kingdom of Assam. The British province after 1838 and the Indian state after 1947 came to be known as Assam.
On February 27, 2006 the Government of Assam started a process to change the name of the state to Asom, STILL a controversial move that has been opposed by the people and political organizations. |
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| Tea leaves : Assam produces a significant portion of the world's tea. Today, 'tea' has become almost a brand identity for the name Assam. |
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| Areca nut or Tamul Goss :
the nut is an important element of cultural symbolism. |
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| A Golden Langur; endangered and are found in Chakrasila Sanctuary in Goalpara district. |
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| A White-winged Wood Duck or Deohanh, endangered. Mostly found in the Upper Assam Tropical Forests. |
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Geomorphic studies conclude that the Brahmaputra, the life-line of Assam is a paleo-river; older than the Himalayas. The river with steep gorges and rapids in Arunachal Pradesh entering Assam, becomes a braided river (at times 10 mi/16 km wide) and with tributaries, creates a flood plain (Brahmaputra Valley: 50-60 mi/80-100 km wide, 600 mi/1000 km long).The hills of Karbi Anglong, North Cachar and those in and close to Guwahati (also Khasi-Garo Hills) now eroded and dissected are originally parts of the South Indian Plateau system. In the south, the Barak originating in the Barail Range (Assam-Nagaland border), flows through the Cachar district with a 25-30 miles (40-50 km) wide valley and enters Bangladesh with the name Surma.
Assam is endowed with petroleum, natural gas, coal, limestone and other minor minerals such as magnetic quartzite, kaolin, sillimanites, clay and feldspar. A small quantity of iron ore is available in western districts. Discovered in 1889, all the major petroleum-gas reserves are in Upper parts. A recent USGS estimate shows 399 million barrels (63,400,000 m3) of oil, 1,178 billion cubic feet (3.34×1010 m3) of gas and 67 million barrels (10,700,000 m3) of natural gas liquids in Assam Geologic Province.
With the “Tropical Monsoon Rainforest Climate”, Assam is temperate (Summer max. at 95-100°F or 35-38°C and winter min. at 43-46 °F or 6-8 °C) and experiences heavy rainfall and high humidity. The climate is characterized by heavy monsoon downpours reducing summer temperature and foggy nights and mornings in winter . Thunderstorms known as Bordoicila are frequent during the afternoons. Spring (Mar-Apr) and autumn (Sept-Oct) are usually pleasant with moderate rainfall and temperature.
Assam is one of the richest biodiversity zones in the world and consists of tropical rainforests,deciduous forests, riverine grasslands,bamboo, orchards and numerous wetland ecosystems; Many are now protected as national parks and reserved forests. The Kaziranga, home of the rare Indian Rhinoceros, and Manas are two UNESCO
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Process of Making Tea … This 1850 engraving shows the different stages in the process of making tea in Assam. |
World Heritage Sites in Assam. The state is the last refuge for numerous other endangered species such as Golden Langur (Trachypithecus geei), White-winged Wood Duck or Deohanh (Cairina scutulata), Bengal Florican, Black-breasted Parrotbill, Pygmy Hog, Greater Adjutant and so on. Some other endangered species with significant population in Assam are Tiger, Elephant, Hoolock Gibbon, Jerdon's Babbler and so on. Assam is also known for orchids.
The region is prone to natural disasters with annual floods and frequent mild earthquakes. Strong earthquakes are rare; three of these were recorded in 1869, 1897 (8.1 on the Richter scale); and in 1950. |
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Tourists visiting Assam must realize that the Brahmaputra valley lies in one of the the great migration routes of mankind. The migration did not always lead to settlement. For instance, some scholars believe that the earliest migrants were the Australoids. In the migration of their early branch from the Eastern Mediterranean sea they passed through Assam into South-east Asia and Australia. Today physical traces of Australoid are extinct except in speech forms. The Khasis of Meghalaya though not of Australoid racial make-up speak the language of the Austro-Asiatic group.
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Bihu Dancer playing pepa. |
Then again the migration was intermittent and the influx was never in hordes. The valley even today has about 118 rivers and rivulets flowing into the Brahmaputra. In the monsoons of old times, when the volume of water was much higher than what it is today, the valley resembled a sea. The temperate clime in the hills (especially the less forested areas 2500 ft above msl) was more suitable for human habitation. In the Northeast India for nearly two thousand years the two major races of mankind the Caucasoid and the Mongoloid lived in close proximity allowing for the exchange of genes between the two racial groups. The Caucasoid elements entered Assam early. The variety of Caucasoid includes Mediterranean and Alpine- Amenoids. But today in the Alpine physical features is not significant in the Assamese. The Kalitas form a significant portion of the valley's population. In Upper India an admixture with the Alpines took place and such hybrid type may have been the ancestor of the Kalitas. Irano-Scythians and Mediterranean elements appear to be more conspicuous in the Assamese people of today.
The Irano-Scythians and the Indo-Aryans arrived in Assam by 600 BC, if not earlier. The Tibeto-Burmans migrated south from their original homeland in the Upper courses of Yangtze Kiang and Hwang-Ho. One group skirted the Himalayan wall and arrived in northeast Burma from where they moved westward into Assam, but did not find it suitable and so moved along the Eastern Himalayan foothills to reach Bhutan, Tibet and Nepal. At later dates they migrated in successive waves to enter into the hills and plains of Assam. The other group (which entered later), however, found the Assam conditions conducive and settled in different parts of northeast India. . It is interesting to note that each group of migrants could live in relative isolation, so the exchange of cultural traits were gradual and their social structures (especially in the hills) were preserved for centuries.
The Tibeto-Burmans can be linguistically divided into two main branches: North Assam and Assam-Burmese. The North Assam branches are those communities settled in Arunachal Pradesh, like the Adis, Nishis, Mishings and Mishimis. The Assam-Burmese group includes three groups: Bodos, Nagas and Kuki -Chins. None of these languages had a written form until the arrival of the Christian missionaries in the late 19th century. However, a century earlier the people of Western Kameng in Arunachal Pradesh (present headquarter Tawang) had
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Lush Green Tea Gardens of Assam. |
adopted Tibetan as their written language. The Kiratas and Cinas of yore had a language of their own but there are no literary remains. The rock inscriptions and copper plate grants issued by the Kamarupa kings of the fort towns in Guwahati and Tezpur used Sanskrit language. Till about the beginning of the 13th century Sanskrit was the language of the court and a few learned people were conversant with it. Non-Aryan languages of the Austric and Tibeto-Burman varieties were prevalent. A local variety ( Kamrupi variety ) of the Magadhi Prakrit was in existence and between the 6th and 12th century AD this language had crept into some of the inscriptions found. Hiuen Tsang noted this distinct variety of Prakrit in his observations on the language of the people of Kamarupa. For one thousand years this mid-Indo Aryan Language went through a process of Sanskrit import and non-Aryan assimilation to emerge into the modern Assamese language of today.
For centuries the economy of the valley was integrated with the hills. The hill tribes with rice, dried fish, silk from the plains, bartered raw cotton, rock salt, iron and oranges. Language was an important vehicle for barter economy. In Arunachal Pradesh till as late as 1970 a mixed Assamese was the only language for mutual communication among the different tribal communities. This hybrid language is known as Nagamese and still serves as the lingua franca in Nagaland.
The earliest specimen of script so far discovered in this area is the 5th century rock inscription. This is the Eastern Gupta alphabet offshoot of the brahmi script. This variety of the East India script developed into the Kutila script (6th to 9th century AD). The alphabet of the early Assam inscriptions initially resembles the Kutila script but by the 12th century some of the alphabets assumed shapes of what is known as proto-Assamese variety. Between the 5th and 10th century AD North-Bengal and also portions of what is now Bangladesh at times formed a part of Kamarupa , it is natural that the development of the Bengal and Assam alphabet would evolve similar irregularities. This explains the close resemblance of the modern Bengali script with that of the Assamese script of today. |
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The Diversity of Religious practice & Beliefs
Tourists traveling in India are sometimes amazed to find that there are many
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Durga : Mangaldoi |
hundreds of deities in the Hindu pantheon. This cannot be explained away by postulating that in a civilization that is 3500 year old, gods tend to accumulate and increase in numbers. The number of gods in the Indo-Aryan Hindu pantheon reflects the diversity of non-Aryan and tribal religious practice. Ever since the Aryan influx into the sub-continent, religious practice has tended to show that primitive religious rites and their gods are gradually incorporated into a greater productive society. The Indo-Aryan migration tends to Sansikritize, i.e., to assimilate smaller non-Aryan regional cults into the pantheon of Hindu gods. The Brahmans with their knowledge of the calendar and superior levels of literacy were best placed to effect such assimilation.
This process started in the Brahmaputra valley some two thousand years ago. Inscriptions proclaiming land grants to Brahmans have been discovered. But here the assimilation process required contending with an unusual degree of cultural diversity. Of course, the population of all diverse racial elements has been sparse throughout, but these non-Aryan and tribal cultures were an inhibiting influence especially when as early in the 1st century AD Kirata (tribal) statehood and fort towns (Pragjyotishpur) were in existence. Because of this the caste system was very loosely structured, and rules related to caste and untouchability were never as rigorously observed as in the rest of India. Even today the Hindus in Assam have peculiar customs and rituals related to certain functions in their marriage ceremony and Bihu festivals, where the mantras and assistance of the Brahmans are not required. Occupations regarded as socially taboo by Hindus in mainland India are performed by high caste Assamese. In all households women irrespective of their caste status carry on the weaving of cloth. Vegetarianism among Hindus, including Brahmins, is rare. As late as 1930 in the Sonitpur district, Brahmin households had cattle camps.
For centuries, sections of the non-Aryan and tribal people were gradually absorbed into mainstream by influence, proselytizing and conversion. But tribal converts to Hinduism did not completely abandon their traditional beliefs. Even today the old faith still lingers and tribal deities have been married with gods and goddess of the Hindu pantheon. As a result some important developments took place in Hindu religion where diverse Gods with special cults and sectarian rites emerged. These were connected with Shiva, Sakta, Vishnu and Sun worship. A discerning visitor would find that the Hindu religious practice in Assam is distinct from the Hindu practice in the rest of the country.
However, a large section of tribes in the Northeast continued for centuries to isolate themselves and maintain their own speech, funeral rites, method of cultivation, and religious beliefs. The cult of ancestor worship is expressed in megalithic culture and practice of raising megaliths continues till today. The Khasis of Meghalaya consider their ancestors as supernatural partners of Gods. Even today in the Shad Nongkrem Festival a gourd of potent liquor is poured as thanksgiving to the departed souls. Some of the tribal communities have their own belief of a Supreme Being. The qualities of omnipresence and omnipotence are attributed to Him. Each tribal community has a distinct name for their own supreme entity. In a recent development, the Adis of Arunachal Pradesh personify Him as Donyi-Polo meaning the Sun and the Moon. The Mishimis call theirs Khynjim , the Karbis call Him Hephatim, while the Semas of Nagaland address their god as Althou. The Khasi God is known as U Blei, while the Bodo-Kacharis have various names for their Supreme Being. Gods and Goddess are worshipped with their favorite animals. However propitiating their Gods with sacrifice was not a household affair till recently. The community worship of deities takes place in the form of annual festivals and is usually linked with the agricultural season. Today such festivals add to the cultural diversity of the region.
Sometimes tribal worship is related to activity. The Morans of Upper Assam worshipped Sadan Madan before catching elephants or when wild elephants cause depredation to crops. The Bodos offer a cock to the Bhandari while going out fishing in order to have a good catch. Spirits and supernatural elements are believed by some tribes to exert power. The Nishis of Arunachal Pradesh believe that colorful butterflies are spirits of the dead and the Adis propitiate those spirits with rice beer and meat.
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| Places of Interest |
Sualkuchi
Location:
Sualkuchi is a medieval town and was perhaps the first urban settlement in Assam. Sualu is the tree from which the leaves are fed to the Muga Silkworm Antherea assama; and Kuchi means cluster.
Every household in Sualkuchi is involved in the silk trade. Before the advent of cheap calico textiles, silk (either raw or wrought) was an important article of produce. Women of all strata of Assamese society (even today) from the Queen downwards used to weave at their loom.
There were basically four types of silk: pat, muga, mezankari and eri. While the other varieties (barring mezankari) are found elsewhere, Muga Antherea assama (till very recently) was grown in Assam only. In medieval times the best quality Muga came from the Kamrup district (where Guwahati and Sualkuchi is presently situated). It was the great center for export of raw Muga silk. This silk was used for ornamentation of cotton fabrics by the artisans in Dacca for export to Persia.
Sualkuchi is still special place to visit as even today every household in this town has a loom working. Extraction of the silk yarn from Muga cocoons using traditional methods can be seen in Sualkuchi. The cocoons are brought from Upper Assam and the Garo hills. |
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Hajo
Location:
O32 km northwest of Guwahati, Hajo was known by different names in different periods of history. The Kalika Puran (11th century) mentions the place as Apunarbhava and Manikuta and the Yogini Tantra (14th century) as Vishnupuskara and Apunarbhava.
Situated in the Manikuta hill of Hajo is the Harigriva Madhav Temple (Harigriva means the 'horsehead' incarnation of Visnu). King Raghudevnarayan built the present temple in 1583 on the foundation of an older temple that was probably built during the 6th -7th century AD. The temple is also visited by pilgrims from Bhutan and also by Tibetans. Buddhists belonging to the Tibetan School of Buddhism consider Hajo to be a holy spot. The main shrine is believed to be the image of Buddha.
Poa Mecca is the holy shrine of the Muslims situated on top of the Garudadhol hill. In the shrine there is a tomb of the Saint Ghiyassuuddin Auliia and a mosque built in 1657 AD by Sujauddin Mohammed Shah (Governor of West Bengal), the son of Shah Jahan. The original shrine founded in the 16th century, was destroyed during the Ahom Mughal conflict in the early part of the 17th century. It was later rebuilt by Sujauddin. It is said that a visit to this shrine confers 1/4th of the merit obtained from a pilgrimage to Mecca.
Brass metal work done by the Moria community can be seen here. The craftsmen themselves made the alloy, but since the middle part of the nineteenth century the braziers began to import brass in sheets manufactured in North India. The articles were not only sold in Assam but also imported to Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan and East Bengal (present Bangladesh). |
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Sibsagar
Location:
A medieval town that gets its name from a tank that was excavated by the Ahom
King Siva Singha in 1734 A.D. The Ahom Monarchs undertook excavation of extensive tanks and these became popularly known as sagar or 'sea;' and the impact of such a tank on the minds of the common people is so great that the locality around
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Ranghar |
the tanks became known by the name of the tank itself. Another notable feature is that most of the tanks excavated still maintaom a water-level much higher than the topography of the surrounding land.
Three temples were built on its south bank, a Shiva temple, a Devi Temple and a Vishnu temple. The Shiva temple being the main temple. Reaching a height of 40 metres, the Shiva temple is the tallest monument of the Ahom period.
Ahom Kings changed their capitals from place to place either due to military or political uncertainties or due to the havoc of floods. King Rudra Singha founded Rangpur in the year 1698. This old capital of the Ahom Kingdom, which possesses the largest secular buildings built by the Ahoms, lasted for 200 years. It is now a part of Sibsagar town.
The Talatal Ghar, built by Rudra Singha, and enlarged by Rajeswar Singha (1751-1769), was not the residential building of the royalty but a house for the functioning of the government. It is here the king gave judgment, received his vassals and other dignitaries. The place of royal residence was just north of this complex, which was traditionally done in timber and thatch, a reason why it does not survive today. The chief architect was Ghanashyam, who was brought from Koch Behar.
The two storied Rang-ghar at Rangpur was built by King Pramatta Singha in 1746. It constituted a royal pavilion used for witnessing outdoor sports such as wrestling, elephant fights, buffalo fights, falconry, etc. The architecture was perhaps imitated from the Namghars.
Other places of interest in Sibsagar include the Garhgaon Kareng Ghar - the Ahom King Suuklengmung built the palace when he shifted the capital from Cheregaon (north of Sibsagar town on the banks of the Dikhow River) in 1539.
The palace was built in 1540, but was destroyed and at the very site on which the old palace existed, a new palace was built by King Rajeswar Sinha I 1762 AD. The structure was built in bricks and is almost square in plan and consists of four stories. |
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Digboi
Location:
79 km south of Dibrugarh, Digboi is an oil town. Oil was first drilled in 1889 and the refinery, the first in Asia, was constructed in 1901. It is amongst the oldest functioning refineries in the world. It was under the Burma Oil Company (Assam Oil Company) but was nationalized in 1979. This is a little former colonial township surrounded by forest.
The oil field is situated in the Upper Dihing Reserve forest. Strict forest rules still apply and the forest is seen in several regenerating stages. Some areas have remained intact. It is extremely rich in bird life. Old colonial style bungalows atop small hillocks give the area a special ambience.
Other things to see in Digboi include the oil museum and the War cemetery (maintained by the War Graves Commission) that has graves of soldiers from the Second World War.
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Shillong
The Capital city of Meghalaya
State.
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Tawang
The land of Monpa tribes in Arunachal Pradesh.
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Mon
A ditrict Head Quater in the State Nagaland.
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Ziro
Picturesque Ziro 200 km from Itanagar, AP.
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