A History of Assam c7.s2.24

c7.s2.24

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.