assam light of the east - incredible...

In itself, the majestic river that runs form

northeast to southwest would be enough

to inspire travellers keen on rare and

mysterious destinations. Some 2,900

kilometres long, the Brahmaputra, "son of

Brahma", has its sources in Mount Kailash;

called Tsang Po in Tibet, it contributes to As-

sam's stature, conferring wealth and immense

potential.

The wide river that crosses Assam over a di-

agonal of 725 kilometres and divides the capi-

tal, Guwahati, is definitely the principal axis of

a land to discover, a land with a bright future.

The Ahom dynasty gave its name to

Assam

Beginning in the 13th century, the Ahom

rajas, descendants of the Shan people, whose

origins were Thai, settled in this region, where

they reigned until the early 19th century. For

six centuries, this dynasty expanded and

strengthened its kingdom, which was prey to

the struggles between principalities or had to

deal with rebellions incited by invaders. In

1826, Assam was annexed by Britain's East In-

dian Company; it became an Indian state in

1947. It has since experienced peace that has

often been troubled by inter-ethnic rivalries

and conflicts.

Today, Assam's location on the borders of

Southeast Asia, Myanmar and China is a huge

asset in terms of the state's economic develop-

ment as a hub for investment and exchange

with neighbouring countries, in accordance

with the ambitions of its leaders. The state gov-

ernment is already working on an idea to re-

construct and refurbish an international

highway that was constructed during the World

War II and linked the eastern fringes of the

state with several key Southeast Asian capitals

like Yangon (Myanmar), Bangkok (Thailand)

and Hanoi (Vietnam).The route will cover over

2000 km and will cost nearly $900 billion.

Assam possesses many resources: agricul-

Light of the East

Assam

We have reached the easternmost point.Assam stretches to the outermost bounds of India,irrigated

by the imposing Brahmaputra, the river that crosses the state like a diagonal swathe of light. The

Kaziranga National Park is one of the many natural wonders and cultural riches of Assam that

Mireille-Joséphine Guézennec,Himabindu,has explored for us.

Text and photos by M.-J.Guézennec

Tourism

54 India & You l September-October 2006

Assam

Guwahati

Tourism.qxp 9/18/2006 10:29 AM Page 54

ture (fruit,spices or medicinal plants), forestry

and wood and paper industries, traditional silk

culture, minerals, oil, gas and coal.

Assam is also known for its "green gold",

the "nectar of the gods" produced by its 2,500

tea gardens, which provide a little over half the

tea in India.

Assam tea is a high-quality black tea - tan-

nic and full-flavoured - highly appreciated by

the British who,beginning in 1823,encouraged

its cultivation.The most highly reputed tea gar-

dens are located in the northern and central

Brahmaputra valley regions. Near Jorhat, not

far from the immense island of Majuli, the Tea

Research Centre, the largest and oldest of its

kind, was created in 1911. Since 1970 the State

capital has been home to the renowned Guwa-

hati Tea Auction Centre, the second largest in

the world, where the price of tea is determined.

An increasingly qualified workforce and a

relatively high literacy rate has resulted in hu-

man resources that constitute a powerful lever

for economic development in a state that has

focussed on education and is home to five ma-

jor universities, including an agronomical uni-

versity.

Guwahati, capital of Assam and the an-

cient kingdom of Kamarupa

With its capital Guwahati,Assam used to be

a much larger territory and was mentioned in

the Mahabharata under the name of Pragjy-

otish. In ancient Pragjyotish, celebrating the

"Light of the East", several events left their

traces on the religious foundations and cul-

tural history of the territory.

Also known as Kamarupa,the ancient king-

dom described in the Kalika Purana recalls the

occasion when Kama, god of love, was said to

have reduced to ashes - using the power of

Shiva’s third eye - the great yogi, whose medi-

tation was disturbed.

Shiva, the supreme ascetic whom yoga

made omniscient, knew that man could not

survive long without this spur to desire that en-

flames hearts. He thus consented to breath new

life and shape (rupa) into the inert god of love

(Kama).

But Assam is above all a Mecca for Tantrism

and Shaktism (shakti, the divine female en-

ergy) in the tradition of Shivaism, as shown by

the temple of Kamakhya, renowned for the

worship of Sati, deceased wife of the incon-

solable Shiva.

This, briefly, is the story, told in the time it

takes to follow the path to the temple of the

goddess on the hill of Nilachal. When the dis-

tinguished Daksha, Sati's father, organised a

magnificent sacrifice to which all the gods

were invited except Shiva, his son-in-law, the

ascetic whose body was covered with ashes.

Sati, distressed by this, went to the feast and in

protest burned herself on the sacrificial fire in

India & You l September-October 2006 55

Tea


front of everyone. Having learned of her death,

Shiva, mad with grief, rushed from Mount

Kailash. In his arms, he held tight the inert

body of his beloved and began a dance so fren-

zied that it imperilled the earth. So Vishnu, the

lord who protects the worlds, intervened and

with his powerful sundarshana chakra, cut the

body of Sati into 51 pieces that scattered on the

ground and became holy places, or Shak-

tipeeth.According to legend, the temple of Ka-

makhya was built where Sati's genitalia, or

yoni, fell to earth, making it one of the holiest

sites of Shaktism. In honour of the mother

goddess, thousands of pilgrims come from all

over India for the festival of Ambavasi (Au-

gust-September) and for Durga Puja, paying

homage to the divine energy incarnated by the

goddess.

Clutching our offerings and accompanied

by a priest dressed in red, we thread our way

through the Holy of Holies, at the dark heart of

the temple. Descending a few steps, we reach

the end of the sacred crypt, a mysterious place

that is the source of the venerated goddess's

energy.

Rites: Tantrism and the Vishnuite tra-

dition of the satras

While Shaktism plays an essential role in

the religious beliefs of Assam, another tradi-

tion reappeared in the 15th century under the

leadership of a great saint, Shankardeva, who

contributed to the development of the satras,or

Tourism


Kamakhya Temple


Vishnuite monasteries that still carry on the

tradition of bhakti, or adoration of the god

Vishnu and his avatars.

After having visited the temple of Barpeta

where Shankardeva (1449-1569) was born - he

had a strong influence on the literary and de-

votional tradition of Assamese culture - one

should visit the island of Majuli to the east. It

was on this, the largest island in the world, lo-

cated in the Brahmaputra, that 61 monasteries

were once constructed. Only 22 of these places

of worship - spaces for art and ritual dance - re-

main.

Assam is a place of eclectic traditions and

diverse religious beliefs. While animism was

the initial religion of the Ahom monarchs, they

did not hesitate to embrace Hinduism in the

15th century and later the Vishnuite tradition.

With its various sanctuaries, the village of

Hajo, situated 32 kilometres from Guwahati, is

a model of ecumenism where Hinduism, Bud-

dhism and Islam exist side by side.

It is an example of the conciliation of minds

and tolerance of the plurality of beliefs that is

the only touchstone for peace and social

progress.

As the name Pragjyotish indicates, this an-

cient land developed an elaborate system of

knowledge in the fields of astronomy and as-

trology, of which the Ahom kings were great

adepts. Dedicated to the planets, the renowned

Nabagraha temple, located on the hill of Chi-

tranchal, is in the shape of a celestial arch. In-

side are laid out in precise order the nine

planets (or navagrahas), represented by

lingams covered with ritual cloths symbolic

colours.We must make an offering to the planet

Mercury, which presides over journeys and ex-

changes, and Saturn, given that it is Saturday,

the day when homage should be paid to it.

Near this temple, educated men keen on the

divinatory arts draw up birth charts and make

predictions in accordance with an ancestral tradi-

tion that attributes to man an intermediary posi-

tion between heaven and earth and assigns him a

significant and determined place in the cosmos.

Before nightfall, we are invited to a roman-

tic sail on the immense river aboard the Jol-

poree. Festooned with yellow, red and blue, the

lights of the city and the stars are reflected in

the expanse of water, making for a shimmering

tableau created by an invisible artist for our

pleasure.

When day breaks over Kaziranga Na-

tional Park

Torrential rain throughout the night, the

sign of an early monsoon. We only have a few

days left to attempt an adventure in the direc-

tion of Kaziranga National Park before the

monsoon rules the skies for several months.

From Guwahati, we have to travel 217 kilome-

tres on the NH 37 road, which runs alongside

the Brahmaputra.

Four o'clock in the morning.We wake up in

the tropics after a muggy and peaceful night

filled with luxuriant dreams. Melodious bird-

song pierces the white chrysalis of the elegant

sphere of protective netting supposed to ward

off mosquitoes and other unwanted insects.

Can you imagine a more fantastic way of being

woken up for a rendezvous with the jungle and

its inhabitants?

The rising sun fringes the horizon and

against this backdrop of amber and violet

shadows is traced the high curve of the loyal

pachyderms waiting for the first visitors.

Planted on their backs, uniformed mahouts,

like marionettes already on stage, are ready to

take us inside the national park.

First off, savannah as far as the eye can see,

green and flat. A herd of marsh deer, a distant

patch of tawny velvet, comes to life at our ap-

proach. Branching antlers covered with amber

velvet adorn the fine heads of the older males.

Ears pricked up, alert and vigilant, they take up

position, observe, then begin a slight move-

ment of retreat and scattering. The caravan ad-

vances in the high grass, which is increasingly

brown, slender and rough. At a steady pace our

elephants progress through the fields of sharp-

ened reeds that caress their flanks. Suddenly, a

tribe of wild boars clear off in a flash of black.

Tourism


Nabagraha Temple


We then begin to desire the fleeting light touch

of ocellated fur - the thrill of imagined tiger

eyes or the elusive feline waltz of an elegant

panther.

In the distance appear a scattering of im-

posing rhinoceroses, their heavy legs support a

carapace of thick grey pleats - a tunic added by

time to their immense bodies, which we

silently approach. With their slits of eyes, they

stare at us. Their small eyes pierce the wrinkles

of skin topped with a sole,exceptional horn.We

know that the park is their domain. Elegant

white birds come to mingle with their legs.

They alight for an instant on their invulnerable

backbones.

Suddenly, as if caught in a trap, one of them

nimbly gets in front of us: he tries to hide in the

long grass to protect one of his young to whom

the only threat we pose is photographic. In this

game of hide-and-seek, our trained elephants

doggedly escort them. A little further on, prac-

tically at our feet, a rhinoceros surprised play-

ing in the mud suddenly appears. It looks like

he has dipped himself in a bath of grey clay.

Covered with clay,he sure-footedly sets off,per-

haps like every morning, to stand immobile at

the park gates. Like statues, two rhinoceroses

stand guard at the entrance.

Kaziranga, a national park and World

Heritage site (1985)

Located on the southern bank of the

Brahmaputra at the foot of the Mikir hills and

the Karbi plateau, the park was, until the early

20th century, just an immense impenetrable

jungle where only indigenous tribes hunted

and poached.

They were so efficient that there were only

12 rhinoceroses left in 1905, when Kaziranga

was recognised as a national forest. In 1950 it

became a wildlife sanctuary and in 1974 it was

made a national park covering some 430

square kilometres. In 1985 Karizanga National

Park became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Located in the heart of Assam, the park is the

largest reserve of rhinoceroses, rhinoceros

unicornis, in India - and the world.

Over the years, the park's rhinoceros popu-

Tourism


Kaziranga park

Tourism.qxp 9/18/2006 10:29 AM 8

Tourism

lation has continued to increase and,according

to the latest statistics, is home to 1,500 beasts,

which are the pride of Assam, an enviable rar-

ity in the wilderness protected by the constant

efforts of the ever-vigilant authorities.

Besides these giants, other large mammals,

such as elephants, wild buffaloes, rare marsh

deer and nearly 90 tigers, share the huge jun-

gle territory, only a fraction of which is open to

tourists from November to April. During the

monsoon season - May to October - when 75

per cent of the park is sometimes flooded, the

animals take refuge in the Mikir hills, which

peak at 1,220 metres.

The tropical vegetation and climatic condi-

tions make the park a major reserve for large

reptiles (pythons and cobras); Gangetic dol-

phins and fish abound in the many bodies of

water. And for rare bird lovers, Kaziranga is

home to 450 species.

At sunset, we return to greet our mounts,

which receive care and food from their ma-

houts. On foot, we follow close on the heels of

the pachyderms to the river where they bathe

with their young: a playful and refreshing mo-

ment during which,sprawled on their sides, legs

in the air, lulled in the refreshing water, the ele-

phants pose gracefully.Trunks lifted or twisted,

the show-offs languidly say goodbye.

On the horizon, a ball of fire in the redden-

ing monsoon sky traces a phosphorescent arch.

Soft green plants shiver in the mild evening air.

Then the sparkle of the rice paddies is

blurred by the encroaching greyness. At the

park exit, we make our way among the dark

green waves to our hotel. The infinite, shiny

curve of the copses of the tea gardens disap-

pears in the dusk.

The rare splendour of an Eastern night

happening in the contemplated immensity of

the sky in the distance. Assam, like a latent

dream, half-opens the doors of the future onto

its fables long kept secret. n


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assam light of the east - incredible...

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