The Background of Assamese Culture

The ground of Assamese Culture

BY PRAPHULLADATTA GOSWAMI, M.A.

I

Culture is a term admitting of various interpretations. The consensus of opinion seems to indicate that it generally transcends the biological individual and deals with the mass of learned and transmitted habits, techniques, ideas, and values–and the behaviour they induce in a particular social group. Culture not only comprehends what is obvious, that is, the arts and crafts and oral or written literatures and thought currents, but also the basic customs and traditions, rites and rituals which together foster a certain social pattern and a certain outlook among the people living in that pattern. Literature and historical incidents are but what we see from the outside; what gives authenticity and a convincing colour to any study of a social group is an understanding of the deeper roots from which it sprouted.

Any study of Assamese culture will include the social and political movements that have occurred from time to time, the conquests and defeats, the invasions and migrations, the records of sculpture and architecture, the cultivation of the arts, the religions of the people, and so on. The social system of the Assamese community will reveal influences of the Indian varnasrama model; the political ideals of Assam kings will show parallels in India; the cultivation of the arts will reveal influences of the Indian standards; the language itself is a Sanskritic language and the old inscriptions prove the acceptance of Sanskrit as a court language; even the land system bears traces of Indian land system. Thus the culture of Assam on the face of it is Indian culture. Where lies the differential. To answer this question will be the responsibility of any study which assumes the analysis of Assamese culture.

Assamese culture does have its distinctive features. For example, in spite of the apparent adherence to the varnasrama systems Assamese society does not admit of caste rigidity and there have been evidences of classes considered as Brahmans or priests even among non Brahman castes. The process of Hinduisation is easy and has gone on for centuries. The reason behind this is that Assam is a melting pot of races, and the fusion of cultures here has been sanctioned not only by miscegenation but by political necessity. The army of Bhagadatta was supposed to have been constituted of Kiratas and Cinas, and during bistorical times, Assam kings gave a tough fight to invaders because a common national ideal could be fostered among the people. The local customs were overlaid with customs derived from the Grihyasutra, the local temper was softened at the touch of the Aryan outlook, and these external factors thus had a cohesive and harmonising effect on the diverse elements which apparently confused the social and cultural scenes of the land.

But the primary step in any discussion of Assamese culture must be this racial miscegenation and the results consequent on it. At present the land is inhabited by Aryanised Assamese, Bodos, Nagas and Kukis and their sub-tribes. The Mongoloid strain is obvious (it includes a Shan element), and if language is any indication, at one period of the history of the land there were Austro-Asiatic or Austric settlers–a sub-section of the far-flung Austronesian race. The Khasi people around Shillong speak an Austric tongue but the people themselves can no longer be called racially Austronesian. The lower culture of the land seems to have borne traces of Austronesian influences. There are numerous traits whose distribution is found from the Naga of Assam to the Batak of Sumatra and the Ifugao of the Philippines, thus indicating their antiquity. These traits include: Jhum farming by burning and slashing new pieces of forest; terrace irrigation of wet rice; keeping of chickens and pigs, sometime of buffalo also; multifarious use of bamboos for houses, spears and bows, handles, knives, containers, musical instruments, and what not; raising dwellings on piles off the ground; here and there, surprising megalithic monuments; separate men’s or girls’ dormitories, with associated but varied customs of courtship and trial marriage; strong development of legal institutions, but weak political ones; blood feud and head hunting; survival of sacrifice, divination, and ordeals of the types widely prevalent before their displacement by the great world religions. This summary still holds good in Assam among the tribes dwelling to the north-east and the east. While the use of bamboo –its shoots even as food–is universal, some of these traits are to be observed among people who are within the fold of the Aryanised Assamese, others are extant among those who form the fringe of
Assamese population. The Namghar, a centre for congregational prayer as well as for all social activity, introduced by Sankardev in the 16th century, could be so successful because the tribal council held in the Bachelors’ Hall was a living tradition among the people.

The influence of primitive peoples is probably no less felt on the Indian religions which penetrated into Assam. Devi worship here was accompanied with animal and human sacrifices, especially at Kamakhya and Sadiya. That Tantricism could flourish here was probably owing to the fact that women had few restrictions put on them; excepting in socio-political matters, women in the Polynesian zone have always enjoyed a pretty enviable status. In the secret sittings of certain sections of the population, women even now take a regular share, and these secret clubs themselves seem to be in the tradition of primitive secret societies. These clubs have thrived on Buddha-Sahajiya nourishment. The great Spring festival, known as the Bihu (from Sans. Viswat) itself occasions an atmosphere which till recently saw the choice of life partners, especially in upper Assam. While the Bihu dance points to affinities in the Polynesian zone, the songs accompanying it have spiritual parallels among the Shans and had such parallels in ancient south-west China. In spite of the vitality of Hindu forms of worship, a popular festival like the Bihu can be singled out as one which sends a thrill through the heart of every Assamese.

Linguistically also, there are evidences of Austronesian influences. The very word tokon, a bamboo stick which a villager carries about, is an Austric word and current in at least twelve languages and dialects outside Assam. The town of Gauhati (Guahati) owes its name an Austric formation, meaning a place where areca nuts grow in plenty. The great Brahmaputra is popularly known as the Luit, and the term is traced to Austric sources. Luit was later Sanskritised as Lauhitya. The study of place names would show the interplay of cultures like the Austrie and the Bodo (Mongoloid).

Even folk-literature would throw some light on the lower culture of the people. A Bihu song which says:

First God made the world
then He made the creatures
the same God made love
why don’t we?

might point to a spirit which gave resistance to the onrush of the more powerful Aryan civilisation. How this spirit proved too strong even in the sixteenth century could be gathered from the life of the neo-Vaishnavite saint, Sankardev, who came baffled in his attempt to preach his tenets in upper Assam.

II

Thus a study of the culture of Assam is a complex task and presupposes more than mere historical knowledge. Mr. R. M. Nath in his impressive work, “The ground of Assamese Culture,” has made an attempt to do justice to a difficult subject. Mr. Nath is an engineer by profession and historian and archaeologist by inclination. His outlook is historical and, for the earliest portion of his narrative, he has had to fall upon hypothetical ground. He starts with the early Austric (Austro-Asiatic) settlers of the land and has tried to connect several extant groups of the present population with certain names found elsewhere in India. For example, he connects the Morias (Marias of the Central Provinces) with the Mataks and Moa-Morias (Mowamariyas), who played a distinct role in the dissolution of the Assam kingdom in comparatively recent times. The argument is based on similarity of sounds of terms and not ethnological investigation or linguistic evidences, and the conclusion seems to have been pushed into time. To give another instance, the Kalitas, a caste in the Assamese community, he connects with a Tamil formation Kal-Taton (stone-worker). Philology does not sanction the conversion of Kal-Taton to Kalita and the Kalitas have been known rather as good cultivators. The term Kalita should perhaps be traced to Moggalana Kalita as found in Buddhist literature. The conclusions based upon philology of this nature seem to be shaky but those based on historical records or even historical conjectures stand on firmer ground.

As regards plausible historical conclusions, the writer sometimes has stretched his imagination to a considerable extent. A case in point is the reason put forward for the recall by Harshavardhana of Hinen Tsang from the court of Bhaskarvarman (p. 39): “Continuance of the Buddhist sage for a long period in the royal court of Kamarupa was considered a menace to the Hindu religion in the country and the  ears of Harahavardhana appear to have been poisoned against Bhaskar Varma by interpreting this special favour to the ambassador of China as an endeavour to establish political alliance with the emperor of China for gaining ultimately a political supremacy over the whole of India.” This is a brilliant conjecture, not unwarranted by the intelligence and capability of Bhaskarvarman and certain references found in Harshacharita and Mudrarakshasa. The writer might have mentioned a more historical episode relating to the life of this liberal king of old Kamarupa. Bhaskarvarman showed a desire to have first-hand knowledge of things Chinese and requested the Chinese traveller to let him have a Chinese classic in Sanskrit translation. At a time hen China showed so much desire to have information relating to India, the only Indian who returned the compliment was the enlightened Bhaskarvarman of Kamarupa.

The writer has done adequate justice to the sculptural side of his subject so far as records have been unearthed. He has added to the value of the book with a sufficient number of plates and diagrams and these throw light on the religious beliefs of the people also. For example, snake pillars are indicative of a certain trend in the religious beliefs of the people (plates II and III).

The snake holds an important place in the popular religions of the people and especially in lower Assam, Goddess Manasa has her due propitiation every year in the rainy season. Manasa may finally be a Dravidian import, but she has such a hold on the popular mind that literature has grown around her personality. The writer is on strong ground when he speaks of religions like Saivism and Tantricism. It is a common assumption that till the advent of the neo- Vishnavite saint Sankardev, Assam did not have any trace of the Vasudeva cult. It is pointed out that Mahabhutivarman was mentioned as a Parama Bhagavata in a rock inscription dated 554 A.D.

Dr. B. Kakati has conjectured that Naraka of Mithila was the first man who let in the stream of Aryanisation into the land (Mother Goddess Kamakhya). In fact, in the early history of Kamarupa, Narakasur holds a mysterious position. There are several Narakas in Indian mythology. One of them, found in Kaliki Purana and Jogini Tantra, two early works dealing with the land and religious life of Assam, seems to possess fairly strong outline; Dr. Kakati calls him the Naraka of Mithila. Mr. Nath also considers him as Naraka of Mithila, an Asura adventurer, who comes to settle in Kamarupa and carves out an empire around Pragjyotishpur, modern Gauhati. Mr. Nath writes that, owing to Naraka’s settlement in Kamarupa, “Maithili culture spread in Assam and gradually influenced the Austria and Bodo cultures–sometimes by annihilation and sometimes by assimilation. Some of the Bodos and Austrics held their ground in the hill areas... The Austric Ka-Meikha and the Bodo U-Mei-Ludai were gradually assimilated to the Hindu pantheon and became goddess Kamakhya and Siva Umananda...Maithili language with Asura accents mixed with Austric and Bodo words became the dialect of the common people.” (pp. 27-28). Mr. Nath has not shown in what ways “Maithili culture” spread into Assam and the way he has characterised the creation of the “dialect of the common people” is facile and unhistorical. The Assamese language is Sanskritic, full of tadbhava words and the percentage of tribal words is small. The language itself cannot be traced earlier than the ninth century, barring a few words found in Sanskrit inscriptions. The identification of an earlier Mother Goddess with Kamakhya or of a wild tribal God with Siva is plausible and herein we might even see the supersession of an earlier culture by a later one; but to identify modern formations like Khasi Ka-Meikha with Kamakhya or Bodo U-Mei-Ludai with Umananda is misleading.

Mr. Nath is happier when he deals with later periods, which have authentic records. From about the thirteenth century the history of the land is an uninterrupted narrative because of the chronicle written by the Ahoms, a section of the Shans, who came to rule here and later became naturalised as Assamese.

The writer is also on stronger ground when he describes the arts and crafts of ancient Assam. These can be deduced from available historical records, mainly archaeological. Music and the dance find mention in early inscriptions. Sculptural figures have kept records of social activities of early Assam. “Males and females danced together in temples and also in gatherings on festive occasions accompanied by musical instruments like drums, cymbals and flutes, while aristocratic women played on high-class stringed instruments like the veena. Gallant young men used to amuse the audience by playing with tamed tigers in the open. The sculptor used his chisel to record all these minor events of daily life in black hard stone–that are even now found scattered all over the present town of Tezpur.” (p. 43). A series of reliefs found near Tezpur (plate X), where men and women dance to the sound of the drum and the flute, evidence dance of a popular nature and seem to have affinities with the Bihu dance as observed even in modern times. The primitive and sexual in character. The writer describes it as an early Austric festival and gives it a metaphysical description: “Swaying of the upper part of the body ward and forward with a sudden jerk, keeping the lower part stiff, was an imitation of the effect of the storm on trees…..” (p-5) The derivation of Bihu from Dvishu is open to question; the term Vishu is prevalent also in South India.¹

If culture implies something more than written literature, sculpture, inscriptions and travellers’ reports and does necessitate an attempt to define the behaviour-pattern of a particular society, then the popular festivals and the large body of popular songs and sayings should deserve more careful study. The hold of the Assamese people, especially of upper Assam. In like manner the evidence of sayings like the following may not be lightly set aside:

1. Rice you will get so long you live; a hole you will get when you die.
2. If the sun is hot he takes to the shade; if he finds a shade he sleeps; the ploughing season must be over before he can persuade himself to plant on a piece or two of grounds.
3. If God keeps who kills? If God kills who keeps?
4. The king kills, the mother poisons (i.e., such things are not to be thought of).

If folk-literature is any evidence, and it is respectable evidence, the Assamese people are ease-loving, tending to be apathetic, poetic, and good-humoured.

To sum up, Mr. Nath’s book, in spite of its shortcomings, would give the reader a panoramic view of the history, sculptural achievements, religious developments, and a good deal of the elements which have composed the society of this land. The plates and diagrams and productions of paintinge are of especial value, being convincing records of the arts and crafts, popular beliefs, and even political achievements of the Assamese people. For the lay reader the book should prove interesting, though something misleading, while for the specialist it would at least blaze a new path in historical and cultural research. Persons like Guisseppi Tucci and Paul Levi have spoken well of the book.

¹ See P. Goswami, The Bihu Songs of Assam, Eastern Anthropologist, Dec. 1949 and March 1950, pp. 57-100.