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A History of Assam c7.s2: The Mythological Period

A History of Assam c7.s2

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English

The Mythological Period

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In the Hindu epics and in Paurānik and Tāntrik literature there are numerous references to ancient Assam, which is known as Prāgjyotisha in the Mahābhārat and as Kāmarupa† in the Purāns and Tantras. Its extent varied from time to time. When the stories relating to it were inserted in the Mahābhārat, it stretched southwards as far as the Bay of Bengal and its western boundary was the Karatoya. This was then a river of the first order, and united in its bed the streams which now go to form the Tistā, the Kosi and the Mahānanda. It was held sacred, ranking almost as high as the Ganges, and its tutelary deity, a mermaid goddess named Kausika, was worshipped all over the Matsya Desh, or the tract between it and the old bed of the Brahmaputra, which formerly flowed past the town of Mymensingh. In the *Kālika Purān* it is said that the temple of Kāmākhyā near Gauhāti was in the centre of Kāmarupa, and in the *Vishnu Purān* it is added that the country extended around this temple in all directions for 100 *yojanas*, or about 450 miles. Allowing for exaggeration, this may be held to embrace the whole of Eastern Bengal, Assam and Bhutān. In the *Jogini Tantra*, which is probably a later work, Kāmarupa is said to extend from the Karatoya river on the west to the Dikhu on the east, and from the mountain of Kanjagiri on the north, to the confluence of the Brahmaputra and Lākhyā rivers on the south; that is to say, it included roughly, the Brahmaputra valley, Bhutān, Rangpur, Koch Bihār, the north-east of Mymensingh and, possibly, the Garo Hills.

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∗ The disappearance of former ruling races is one of the most curious phenomena in Indian history. There is no vestige now of the old Bodo rulers of Sylhet. The Khens, who ruled in the north-west of Assam before the Koches, have also for the most part been absorbed in other castes. In Upper India there is no no visible trace of the Greeks, Huns, and other once dominant races or tribes.

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† I have retained the Sanskrit spelling to distinguish the ancient kingdom from the modern district of the same name which occupies only a small part of it.

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According to the same work the country was divided into four portions, *viz.*, Kāmpith from the Karatoya to the Sankosh, Ratnapith from the Sankosh to the Rupahi, Suvarnapith from the Rupahi to the Bharali, and Saumārpith from the Bharali to the Dikrāng. Elsewhere Ratnapith is said to include the tract between the Karatoya and the Monās, Kāmpith that between the Monās and Silghāt on the north bank of the Brahmaputra, and Bhadrapith, the corresponding portion of the south bank, while Saumārpith, as before, is the most easterly tract.

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The origin of the name Kāmarupa is mythologically explained as follows*:—When Sati died of vexation at the discourtesy shown to her husband Siva by her father Daksha, Siva, overcome by grief, wandered about the world carrying her dead body on his head. In order to put a stop to his penance, Vishnu followed him and lopped away the body piecemeal with his discus. It fell to earth in fifty-one

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Origin of the name.

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∗ The germ of the story is to be found in the preface to the *Gopatha Brahmana* published in Nos. 215-252 of the Bibl. Ind. pp. 30-35.

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different pieces, and wherever each piece fell, the ground was held to be sacred. Her organs of generation fell on Kāmagiri, *i.e.*, the Nilāchal hill near Gauhāti, and the place was thenceforth held sacred to Kāmākhyā, the Goddess of sexual desire.* As Siva still continued to do penance, the other Gods became afraid that he would thereby acquire universal power, and accordingly despatched Kāmdeb, the Indian Cupid, to make him fall in love again, and thereby break his penance. He succeeded in his mission, but so enraged was Siva at the result, that he burnt him to ashes by a fiery glance from the eye in the centre of his forhead. Kāmdeb eventually recovered his original form and the country where this took place became known as Kāmarupa.

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The earliest mentioned king of Kāmarupa was named Mahirang Dānab who was succeeded in turn, in the direct line, by Hatak Asur, Sambar Asur and Ratna Asur. No details are given regarding these rulers but the appellations Dānab and Asur suggest that they were non-Aryans.

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After them there was a chief named Ghatak, the ruler of the Kirāts, who are said to have been a powerful race, much addicted to meat and strong drinks.† In the chronicles of the Tippera kings it is said that the ancient name of their country was Kirāta, and the word still survives as the designation of a tract in the Sub-Himalaya, between the Dud Kosi and Arun rivers, and of the Khambu, Limbu and Yākhā tribes who inhabit it. In Sanskrit literature the term seems to have been used indiscriminately to designate any border tribe of the northern and eastern frontier.

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† Manu classes the Kirāts with Mlechchhas. Siva is said to have adopted the appearance of a Kirāt before his duel with Arjuna, and was considered the special deity of that race. The Himalaya-born goddesses Umā and Gangā have the nickname Kirāti. The name of the drug Chiretta is said to be a corruption of this word.

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Ghatak, it is said, was defeated and slain by Narak Asur, who is the hero of various stories told in the Purāns and Tantras.‡ According to these legends he was born of the earth by Vishnu, in his pig incarnation, and was brought up by Janak, the king of Videha or North Bihār. He made Prāgjyotishpur (the modern Gauhāti) his capital, and settled numerous Brāhmans at Kāmākhyā. There is a hill near Gauhāti which is still known as the hill of Narak Asur. His rule extended from the Karatoya on the west, to the Dikrāng on the east. He married Māyā, the daughter of the king of Vidarbha, and was greatly favoured by Vishnu, who taught him to worship the Goddess Kāmākhyā. At first he was pious and prospered, but afterwards he came under the influence of Bān Asur, king of Sonitpur, and grew irreligious and presumptuous. He asked Kāmākhyā to take him as her husband, and she assented, on condition that he erected a temple to her on Nilāchal and also constructed a tank and a road to the temple in a single night. He had almost accomplished this task, when the Goddess caused a cock to crow and, claiming this as a proof that day had come, evaded her promise and refused to marry him. Overcome with rage, Narak slew the cock, and the place where he did this is still known as Kukurākātā. By this act he lost for ever the favour of the Goddess.

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∗ Another piece, the lower part of the left leg, is said to have fallen at Fāljur in the Jaintia Parganas. The neck also, it is said, fell somewhere in Sylhet.

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‡ *e.g.*, Chapters 36 to 40 of the Kālika Purān, and the Bhāgavat, Book X, Chapter 59.

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But his crowning misfortune was his refusal to permit Vasishtha Muni to go to worship at Kāmākhyā, in consequence of which the Muni cursed Narak and Kāmākhyā, saying that thenceforward no one who worshipped at the shrine of this Goddess should see the fulfilment of his desire. By the aid of Siva, the duration of the curse was limited to three hundred years, but Narak had now completely alienated both Kāmākhyā and Vishnu; and he was eventually slain by the latter in his incarnation of Krishna. His capital was defended by pānjis, or sharp stakes stuck in the ground, and by numerous outworks erected by the Asura Muru, but Krishna cut his way through with his discus and slew Muru and his sons; he then entered the city and, after slaying thousands of daityas, engaged in a terrible combat with Narak, whom he clove in twain by a single blow of his deadly weapon. He recovered the golden earrings of Aditi, which Narak had stolen, and sent the 16,000 girls imprisoned in his harem, together with his 14,000 elephants and his horses, to his own home in Dvāraka, or Gujarāt.

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He installed on the throne Bhagadatta, the eldest of Narak’s four sons, who is sometimes called Bhagirath by Muhammadan writers.

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Opposite Gauhāti, on the north bank, now stands the temple of Asvakrānta, which means “ascended by horses.” Krishna is said to have halted there when he came to invade Prāgjyotisha; and a number of small holes in the rock near the river are pointed out as the footprints of his horses.

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Bhagadatta is frequently mentioned in the *Mahābhārat* as a powerful potentate ruling in the east. In the *Sabha Parvan*, it is related that Arjun attacked his kingdom of Prāgjyotisha. Bhagadatta had a host of Kirāts and Chins and numerous other warriors that dwelt on the sea coast, but after eight days’ fierce fighting he was defeated and compelled to pay tribute. Later on, when the forces of the Kauravas and Pāndavas were being mustered for their final struggle, he went with a powerful army to the assistance of Duryodhan, and no less than four sections of the *Drona Parvan* are devoted to a narrative of his heroic deeds on the field of Kurukshetra, from the time when he rescued Duryodhan from the onslaught of Bhim to his fight with Arjun in which he was defeated and slain. The issue of this last combat is ascribed to the intervention of Krishna, who rendered harmless the invincible weapon which he had given to Bhagadatta’s father Narak.

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This king, it is said, was succeeded by his son Vajradatta.[*] Narak’s descendants continued to rule for nineteen generations, the last kings of his line being Subāhu and Suparua. Subāhu became an ascetic and went to the Himalayas, and was succeeded by his son Suparua, who was afterwards killed by his ministers.

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It is impossible to say to what race this dynasty belonged, but the use of the appellation Asur shows that they were non-Aryans. Nor is there any clue as to when they reigned. Bhagadatta is described as a contemporary of the heroes of the *Mahābhārat*, but that great epic, as is well known, is far from being the product of a single age, and no one has yet undertaken a critical examination of it in order to distinguish the original text from subsequent interpolations. We may, however, conclude from the numerous references to them in ancient literature, as well as from the remarkable way in which their memory has been preserved by the people of Assam down to the present day, that Narak and Bhagadatta were real and exceptionally powerful kings, and probably included in their dominions the greater part of modern Assam and of Bengal east of the Karatoya.

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∗ This is the relationship given in the *Mahābhārat* and the earliest-known copper-plate. In the later copper-plates Vajradatta is said to be Bhagadatta’s brother.

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The story of Krishna's invasion may perhaps be taken to indicate an expedition by some ancient Aryan chief. We have already seen that as far back as 105 A.D., an Indian king named Samuda was reigning in Upper Burma, while in 322 A.D., a prince of Cambod in north-west India set up a kingdom in Siam; it is, therefore, by no means improbable that other adventurers found their way, at a still earlier period, to Northern Bengal and Assam.

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The capital of Narak and his descendants was Prāgjyotishpur, the modern Gauhāti. *Prāg* means former or eastern, and *jyotisha*, a star, astrology, shining. Prāgjyotishpur may, therefore, be taken to mean the City of Eastern Astrology. The name is interesting in connection with the reputation which the country has always held as a land of magic and incantation and with the view that it was in Assam that the Tāntrik form of Hinduism originated. From its commanding position on the Brahmaputra and its proximity to the sacred temple of Kāmākhyā, it is probable that many other kings also made this town their capital.

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Krishna frequently appears in Assam Mythology. In the *Bhāgavat* it is narrated that there was a king named Bhishmak, who ruled in Vidarbha, which, according to popular tradition in Assam, is the designation of the country round Sadiya. According to ordinary Paurānik accounts Vidarbha corresponds to the modern Berar, but this is not the only case in which the early Hindu settlers in Assam assigned local sites for the occurrences mentioned in Hindu Mythology. Numerous similar instances occur in Further India, and even in Java, where many of the events narrated in the Mahābhārat have been given a local habitation. The Brahmaputra valley was known to the Buddhists of Further India as Weisali. Bhishmak’s capital was called Kundina, a name which still survives in the Kundil river at Sadiya; and the ruins of an extensive fort, about 24 miles north of that town, between the gorges of the Dikrāng and Dibong rivers, are said to be the remains of his capital.* The walls are of no great height, but they are very well preserved; they consist of from six to nine courses of hewn stone (chiefly granite) surmounted by a breastwork of bricks, loopholed, but without any binding of cement. In the same locality are four large tanks and the brick foundations of what must have been extensive buildings.

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Bhishmak had five sons and a daughter named Rukmini. Krishna, having heard of her beauty, was anxious to marry her, but her father had arranged to give her to another prince named Sisu Pāl, whose fort may still be seen a few miles to the east of the one attributed to Bhishmak. Rukmini secretly sent the news to Krishna and, on the day fixed for her marriage, the latter suddenly appeared and carried her off in his chariot. He was pursued by the crowd of princes who had come to assist at the wedding, but he defeated them and married Rukmini at Kundina amid the rejoicings of the people. Many of the marriage songs current in Assam contain allusions to this legend, which has been translated into Assamese and published under the title *Rukmini Haran*.†

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† Veda Press, Calcutta, 1890.

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There is another story told in the *Bhāgavat*, and also in the *Vishnu Purān*, to which a local site has been assigned. Bali, king of Sonitpur, “the city of blood” now known by the Assamese equivalent, Tezpur, had numerous sons, of whom Bān, the eldest, succeeded him. Bān, who was the contemporary of Narak, had many sons and one daughter, Ushā by name. Ushā was very beautiful and attracted the attention of Aniruddha, Krishna’s grandson, who entered the castle where she was guarded and married her according to the Gandharva ceremony. He was seen and captured, after a valiant resistance, but was rescued by Krishna, who defeated Bān in a great battle, which is said to have been fought on the site of what is now known as the Tezpur *bil*. This story has been given an Assamese garb in a little book called *Kumār Haran*.*

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∗ These ruins have been described by Hannay in the J. A. S. B. of 1848.

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Bān Raja’s fort is said to have been on the site now occupied by the Tezpur court-house. Numerous carved stones and frescoes are still to be seen in the locality, but they seem to have belonged to temples rather than to a palace. About a mile to the west is an old silted-up tank which is ascribed to his time, and another tank in the same neighbourhood still bears the name of Kumbhanda his prime minister. His grandson Bhāluka made his capital at Bhālukpung, not far from Bālipāra at the foot of the Aka hills, where the remains of old fortifications are still visible. The Akas are said to claim this prince as their progenitor; and it is, perhaps, not impossible that they are the remains of a people who once ruled in the plains and were driven into the hills by some more powerful tribe.

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In Canto IV of the *Raghu Vansa* it is narrated that Raghu crossed the Lohit, *i.e.*, the Brahmaputra, and defeated the king of Prāgjyotisha, who gave him a number of elephants as tribute.

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According to the *Jogini Tantra* a Sudra named Debesvar was ruling in Kāmarupa at the commencement of the Sak era. Mention is also made of Nara Sankar or Nāgākhya, who flourished towards the end of the fourth century at Pratāpgarh in Bishnāth, where the ruins of a fort attributed to him are still in existence, and of four kings, Mimang, Gajang, Sribang and Mrigang, who ruled for two hundred years at Lohityapur.

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A Kshatriya named Dharma Pāl, it is said, came from the west and founded a kingdom. He made his capital west of Gauhāti and attracted thither a number of Brāhmans and other high-caste Hindus from Upper India. The sage Kendu Kulai is said to have lived in his reign. He was succeeded in turn by Padma Nārāyan, Chandra Nārāyan and others, ending with Rām Chandra, whose capital was at Ratnapur in the Mājuli. This place is mentioned in the old legends as the capital of various kings, amongst others of Kusāranya, son of Harabinda, who is said in the *Dipika Chand* to have ruled over Gaur, Kāmarupa and Jaintia; it is reputed to have been washed away owing to a change in the course of the Brahmaputra river.

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∗ Veda Press, Calcutta, 1891.

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Arimatta. Rām Chandra had a beautiful wife who was raped by the Brahmaputra river and gave birth to a son named Arimatta.* This prince founded a kingdom further west and defeated many other chiefs. At last he came into conflict with Rām Chandra and killed him, not knowing till afterwards of his relationship with him. According to other accounts he accidentally shot his father with an arrow which he had discharged at a deer. In any case, the sin of patricide is generally attributed to him, and many stories are told of his vain efforts to atone for the sin which he had unwittingly committed.

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It is not certain where Arimatta ruled, but most accounts place his kingdom in Lower Assam. His capital is said to have been at the Baidargarh, near Betna in Kāmarup, where a high embankment forming a square, each side of which is about four miles long, is still in existence. He was attacked by a king named Phengua, of the house of Kāmatāpur, who advanced with an army of Meches and Koches, armed with bows and arrows, and threw up an embankment ten miles west of the Baidargarh; this embankment is in the Dhumdhuma Mauza and is still known as Phenguagarh. Phengua was at first defeated. He then engaged in an intrigue with Arimatta’s wife Ratnamālā, and with her aid spoilt the bow-strings of his soldiers, defeated and slew him, and took possession of his capital. He put Ratnamālā to death, saying that, as she had been unfaithful to her late husband, she would probably be false also to him, if he were to fulfil his promise and marry her. Arimatta’s son Ratna Singh continued the war, and eventually overcame Phengua Raja and killed him. He afterwards lost his kingdom, owing, it is said, to the curse of a Brāhman, with whose wife he had carried on an intrigue.

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∗ The traditions vary as to the name and lineage of the king whose wife gave birth to Arimatta, and it is useless trying to reconcile them. One version is given in the text. Another is that he was of the Nāgākhya line, and another that he was the descendant of three kings named Māyurdhvaj, Tāmradhvaj and Pratāppuriya who ruled in succession at Ratnapur; the wife of the last mentioned was Hārmāti, the daughter of Hirabinda, who was descended from Irābatta, king of Saumār. Others, again, identify him with Mrigang, who has already been mentioned.

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In the Sahari Mauza in Nowgong are the remains of an old fort with high embankments known as the Jongālgarh. This is alleged to have been the capital of Jongāl Balahu, another son of Arimatta, who was defeated by the Kachāris and drowned himself in the Kallang river.

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Many legends cluster round Arimatta, but it would serve no useful purpose to discuss them further, as it is quite impossible to unravel the truth from the various conflicting stories that are current amongst the people. The Rajas of Rāni and Dimarua both claim to be descended from him, as well as from Narak and Bhagadatta.

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We may conclude our notice of the legendary period by a story culled from Muhammadan sources. In the introduction to Firishta's history* it is related that Kidar Brāhman, a powerful king of Northern India, was overthrown by Shankal or Shangaldib, who came from Koch, that is to say, from the tract east of the Karatoya, or Kāmarupa. He first conquered, it is said, Bang, or the country east of the Bhāgirathi, and Bihār, and then collected an enormous army and vanquished Kidar in several hard-fought battles. He founded the city of Gaur or Lakhnauti, which, it is said, remained the capital of the kings of Bengal for two thousand years.† He was very proud and magnificent, and had a force comprising 4,000 elephants, 100,000 horse and 400,000 foot.

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† If this story of the founding of Gaur by an aboriginal tribe of Koch or Gāro affinities could be relied upon, it would suggest the query whether the name of Gaur is not in some way connected with Gāro. There is another Gaur under the Gāro hills in Sylhet.

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His downfall is ascribed to Afrāsiyāb, the king of Turān or Scythia. The original Afrāsiyāb is believed to have conquered Persia about seven centuries before the Christian era, but the name, which means "conqueror of Persia," was assumed by others of the family, and the monarch here referred to may have been a subsequent ruler of the same dynasty. However that may be, he appears to have claimed tribute, which Shankal refused to pay. He sent an army of 50,000 Mongols against him, and a fierce battle took place in the mountains of Koch near Ghorāghāt. The Mongols were defeated by overwhelming numbers and retreated into the mountains. They entrenched themselves, but were on the point of being annihilated, when Afrāsiyāb hurried up with reinforcements from his capital Gangdozh, beyond the Himalayas, and utterly defeated Shankal. The latter retreated, first to Lakhnauti and then to the mountains of Tirhut, where he eventually made his submission and was carried off by Afrāsiyāb.*

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∗ Dowson's Elliot's History of India, Vol. VI, page 533.

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The above account of the traditional rulers of Assam does not profess to be at all exhaustive. Religious books and other old writings contain lists of many other kings, but it is impossible to say if they are genuine, and if so, who the kings were and where they reigned; and to refer to them at length would be a waste of time and space. The dynasties mentioned above are those that are best known, and although a great part of the stories told of them may be fictitious, it is probable that there is nevertheless a basis of actual fact.

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There are numerous references to Pāl kings, but the names vary greatly in different lists. The reason is that the title Pāl was assumed by many different Rajas: Nar Nārāyan added Bhu Pāl after his name, and one of the dynasties brought to light in two recently discovered copper-plates also used the title, though they were in no way related to the well-known Pāl kings of Bengal; at the present day in that Province the title is a favourite one with low-caste zamindars who wish to hide their humble origin.

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Some of the legends which have been mentioned suggest that in the distant past the inhabitants of the country which we now call Assam attained considerable power and a fair degree of civilization; and this view is confirmed by the narrative of the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsiang and by the copper-plate inscriptions which will be referred to in the next chapter. This being so, the question will doubtless be asked why so few memorials of their time have come down to us. The reason is that nature has vied with man in destroying them. The Brahmaputra valley is an alluvial country, and the impetuous, snow-fed rivers which debouch from the Himalayas find so little resistance in its friable soil that they are constantly carving out new channels and cutting away their banks; consequently no buildings erected in their neighbourhood can be expected to remain for more than a limited time, except at a few points like Gauhāti, where rock pierces through the alluvium.

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∗ According to Maulavi Abdus Salam (translation of the Riyāz-us-Salātīn, p. 56), Firdausi in his great epic mentions an Indian Prince, named Shangal, in connection with the adventures of Bahram Gaur, a Persian monarch of the Sassanian dynasty who reigned in the middle of the fourth century.

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Though occurring at distant intervals, violent earthquakes are, in Assam, quite as great a cause of destruction as fluvial action; there are few masonry structures which could resist a shock like that of 1897, which not only laid in ruins the towns of Shillong, Gauhāti and Sylhet, but also overthrew many of the monoliths, which are so marked a feature of the Khāsi and Jaintia Hills, and broke down most of the piers of the Sil Sāko, an ancient stone bridge, not far from Hājo, which marks the bed of a river that has long since left it and taken another course. A less sudden, but almost equally potent, cause of damage is found in the luxuriant vegetation of the country. The *pipal* (ficus religiosa) in particular is a great enemy of masonry buildings; and once a seed of this tree has germinated in the interstices of such a building, its downfall is only a question of time. Owing to this cause, many even of the more recent Ahom palaces and temples are already in a state of decay.

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Of the damage done by man, it is necessary only to mention the way in which religious zeal led the early Musalman invaders to break down Hindu temples, and the widespread havoc wrought by the Burmese in a spirit of wanton mischief.

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The ruins which still survive represent only an inconsiderable fragment of the buildings that were once in existence, but more will doubtless come to light when the jungle which now covers so vast an area in Assam comes to be removed to make way for the extension of cultivation.

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