The Mishdi Chronicles

I always believe that the power of a place attracts us and we often visit those places accidentally and without any planning. Sometimes, we make last minute changes in our itinerary to accommodate a place simply because we got to know about it at the last minute, by sheer coincidence. It is quite uncanny to say, or perhaps it is remarkably true as well, that a place chooses its visitors. It might be considered superstitious, but I have experienced this phenomenon myself, a couple of times, during my two decades of rigorous travelling.

When I made my detailed travel plans for upper Assam, I wished to visit Dibrugarh, Majuli Island and Kaziranga National Park in a trip spanning four days. Just two days before my departure, my younger sister visited me. During our casual interaction, I told her about my Assam plans. Incidentally she had stayed in Guwahati, Assam for about five years while pursuing her medicine degree from the Gauhati Medical College and Hospital. She had a fair idea about this State. While leaving after dinner, she asked me if I had planned to visit Sivasagar. I hadn’t even heard of the place before. I felt quite awkward and uncomfortable at my ignorance especially when it came to the landscape of India which I claimed to have understood well. At the same time, I also had the realisation that it was too late now to include a new place in the itinerary with hotel bookings etc. in place. But then, the name Sivasagar began to echo in my mind and I looked at some pictures of the place. It was fascinating. I read about the place and instantly admitted the blunder I was going to make by not including the site in my plans. I wasted no time in correcting my mistake, though at the cost of burning an extra hole in my pocket.

Sivasagar is a quaint little place near Jorhat in Assam. It was the capital city of the earstwhile Ahom kings who were excellent town planners and architects. The erstwhile name of this place was Rangpur and it was the capital of Ahom Kingdom from 1699 to 1788. The Ahom kings constructed many temples and reservoirs in the area. Sivasagar later developed into a major religious site for the people of Assam and evolved into a sacred temple town. We also began our sojourn to the place with a temple visit.

The main temple complex, called Shivadol, perched beautifully on the banks of Gaurisagar tank was a cluster of three temples. The central shrine called Shivadol was dedicated to Shiva and the entire complex gradually came to be known by this temple. In fact, Sivasagar got its name from this temple as Shiva became the main deity of the town. The other two adjoining temples were dedicated to the Goddess or Shakti (Devidol) and Vishnu (Vishnudol). All three were symmetrical in architectural design and were made of bricks and stones. A ‘dol’ is a temple in Assamese language.

It is said that the Ahoms migrated from South China and established their kingdom near Sivasagar. The town saw the influence of Mahayana and Theravada schools of Buddhism too, however, later Hinduism prevailed and survived and these temples are a testimony to this.

I arrived in Sivasagar on a holiday and naturally being a public holiday, the entire temple complex was radiant with people, especially women were draped in beautiful Gamcha sarees, the traditional handwoven sarees of Assam. The womenfolk were everywhere in bright and attractive colours flaunting their typical Assamese way of draping the saree. The men were wearing their traditional Gamcha towel around their shoulders, a ritual that Assamese follow during their temple visits. The cultural visuals of Sivasagar once again left me awestruck with the diversity India offers in various parts of the country.

The town also had some major historical landmarks showcasing the typical Ahom architecture. The first one that we visited was the Rang Ghar or the house of entertainment. It took us about ten minutes by car to reach Rang Ghar from Shivadol. It was a two-storey building which once served as the royal sports pavilion. Various sports like buffalo fight etc. were organised in this pavilion. It didn’t have an amphitheatre like the Colosseum in Rome, but the building was surrounded by huge open spaces for such performances, now converted to gardens by the ASI.

The building was under renovation by the Archaeological Survey of India and a part of it was covered with green sheets with limited permissions to visit.

The Rang Ghar is believed to be the oldest surviving amphitheatre in Asia hosting various adventurous games and cultural programmes during the Ahom reign. It is said that the Ahom king, Rudra Singha gave patronage to Bihu festival of Assam and was also the first one to celebrate Bihu in the courtyard of the Rang Ghar. Even today, this tradition of celebrating Bihu in the gardens of Rang Ghar continues with much fanfare.

The roof of the Rang Ghar was designed like an inverted royal Ahom long boat and the base of the monument had a series of arched entrances. It was a brick structure which didn’t use any cement but instead used a glue prepared with rice, gum, jaggery and pulses, a common ancient construction technology.

The third beautiful piece of architecture was the royal abode of the Ahom kings called the Kareng Ghar. Also known as the Garhgaon Palace, Kareng Ghar was located about 15 km away from the main town and on the outskirts of Sivasagar.

The Kareng Ghar is said to be a seven storey structure with three floors underground and connected through a tunnel with the Talatal Ghar in the main town.

Kareng Ghar was the home of the royal family and Talatal Ghar used to be the military bastion of the Ahom kings. The Kareng Ghar was a brick and stone structure like other buildings in the town.

The interior of the palace had pillared alleyways with rooms. The entire palace was quite ventilated with multiple windows and doors. It is said that the original construction was done purely in wood and later the brick and stone structure was created which replaced the original wooden palace.

The architecture of the Kareng Ghar reminded me of the architectural designs of the Bishnupur temples in West Bengal which I have mentioned in detail in my blog on Bishnupur.

In my journey so far, I didn’t meet a guide who could navigate me through the history of these buildings. I could only see the locals from nearby places visiting these sites.

The last archaeological site that we encountered was the Talatal Ghar which was located within the town of Sivasagar. It was a palace which mainly served as the military base of the kingdom. This was the largest structure in Sivasagar. The premise had temples to the left at the entrance, two secret tunnels, three underground floors, watch towers and rooms for the soldiers. The palace also had separate rooms for the royal family. Again, a brick and stone structure, the palace appeared quite imposing and fascinating.

The palace is now mostly in ruins with the ASI doing regular maintenance activities. Finally at the Talatal Ghar, a guide spotted us. He came to us asking if we needed a guide. It was like a wish come true. So far we had been moving around based on our google knowledge and desperately wanted some other source of information. This gentleman had a good command over English. We happened to be his first customer since morning. It was around 4 in the evening and we felt bad that he had no business since morning. As a matter of fact, rarely someone from outside visited this town.

Also called the Rangpur Palace, the Talatal Ghar once was surrounded by a brick fortification and dikes or moat filled with water. Like other forts in the country, this moat was also filled with crocodiles as a strategic security measure to avert any invasion through water.

Being a holiday, this palace was beaming with revellers dressed beautifully and revelling in the glory of the place. However, hardly anyone appeared to be interested in the history of this palace. They were busy clicking selfies or chatting away with their companions and this is how I could understand the plight of my guide and why he didn’t get a client since morning. In the age of social media, majority of the populace, especially the younger generation is mostly drawn to the superficiality of the monuments. They rarely bother to dive deeper into the history and uncovering the efforts that had gone into constructing such iconic structures.

One portion of the palace had barracks for the soldiers who guarded the town. The Talatal ghar was designed and planned very systematically and strategically to safeguard Sivasagar from foreign invasions.

All the monuments in Sivasagar today stand tall and sing the glory of their past to the generations that follow. Every monument, unique in its own way, adds value to the rich heritage of this country.

About 30 km away from Sivasagar, lies the sacred burial ground of the Ahom kings and queens in the district of Charaideo. These burial grounds are called moidams, the mound- burial system of the Ahom Dynasty. Structurally, a moidam consists of vaults with one or more chambers. At present, the site contains about 90 odd royal burial mounds, out of which only 30 are under the protection of the Archaeological Survey of India. These moidams are often referred to as the pyramids of Assam.

While writing this blog, I came across a news item in a leading newspaper that the moidams of Sivasagar had been included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It was indeed a great news for the country to have another monument included in the prestigious list, yet, I kept wondering why the other monuments of Sivasagar were left out. UNESCO had, in the past too, clubbed various monuments into one broad category like the Great Chola Temples of Tamilnadu or the Group of Monuments of Mahabalipuram.

In modern India, the monuments of Sivasagar and the moidams fall into two different districts of Assam, Sivasagar town being part of Sivasagar district and the moidams falling in Charaideo district, though they both were part of the structures built by the ancient Ahom Dynasty and could have been clubbed together for the deliberations while contesting for the UNESCO site.

Sivasagar was a unique experience. The place had its very own character and identity, sustained for centuries. Quietly hidden in the chapters of history, this little known place awakens its visitors to the glorious past of India, a past so aesthetically preserved and nurtured.