A History of Assam c13.32

c13.32

The neo-Vaishnava sects, founded on the teaching of Sankar Deb, had now attained remarkable dimensions. The country was full of religious preceptors and their followers, who claimed exemption from the universal liability to fight and to assist in the construction of roads and tanks and other public works. This caused serious inconvenience, which the Sākta Brāhmans, who had the king's ear, lost no opportunity of exaggerating. Gadādhar Singh was himself a good liver; and he feared the physical deterioration that might ensue if his people obeyed the injunction of the Gosāins and abstained from eating the flesh of cattle, swine and fowls, and from indulging in strong drinks. He bore, moreover, a personal grudge against some of the leading Gosāins for having refused to shelter him in the days when he was in hiding, and for having endeavoured to dissuade the Bar Phukan from his design to set him up as king in the place of Larā Raja. He therefore resolved to break their power for good and all.* Under his orders many of them were sent to Nāmrup and put to death there. The Auniāti Gosāin, Keshab Deb, escaped this fate by hiding in a Chutiya village, but Rām Bāpu, the Dakhinpāt Gosāin, was captured and deprived of his eyes and his nose; his property was confiscated and his gold and silver idols were melted down.