Ruins of Kachari Rajbari
Kachari Rajbari | |
---|---|
General information | |
Type | Monument |
Town or city | Dimapur |
Country | India |
Coordinates | 25°54′13″N 93°44′25″E / 25.90361°N 93.74028°E |
Construction started | 13th century |
Owner | Kachari Kingdom |
Management | Archaeological Survey of India |
Ruins of Kachari Rajbari are a set of
Colonial descriptions of the Ruins
Lieutenant Grange, then Assistant Political Agent to the colonial government in Assam, undertook his first expedition to the Naga Hills in 1840. An extract from his journal was published in the Journal of Asiatic Society. In his description of the Dhemapore Nugger (Dimapur), he described that they consisted of "some pillars of various pattern, a gateway, the ruined tower, or palace walls, and a small fort to the north, besides tanks both within and without the walls."[1]
In 1840, the fort was surrounded on three sides by a dry ditch. The gateway, Grange described, to be in a "tolerable state of preservation" but the inner passage or guard room had turned into "a heap of ruins."[1] In 1874, Major H. H. Godwin-Austen, from the Topographical Survey of India, describes the entrance gateway as "fine solid mass of masonry... the stone which are pierced to receive the hinges of double heavy door, are still in perfect preservation." He further sketches it to be flanked on both sides by octagonal turrets of bricks with "false windows of ornamental moulded brick work."[2]
The pillars were in three parallel rows. The form of the town, or palace enclosure, was an oblong square running parallel to the
Jae-Eun Shin (2020) points out that early colonial descriptions by successive British administrators fail to mention any clear trace of temples and images at the ruins. This raises doubt about the scale and intensity of
Notes
- ^ a b c (Grange 1840:947–966)
- ^ (Godwin-Austen 1874:3)
- ^ (Godwin-Austen 1874:4)
- ^ a b (Shin 2020:63)
References
- Grange (1840). "Extracts from the Journal of an Expedition into the Naga Hills on the Assam Frontier". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 9 (2): 947–966.
- Godwin-Austen, H. H. (1874). "On the Ruins at Dímápúr on the Dunsirí River, Ásám". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 43 (1): 1–6.
- Shin, Jae-Eun (1 January 2020). "Descending from demons, ascending to kshatriyas: Genealogical claims and political process in pre-modern Northeast India, The Chutiyas and the Dimasas". The Indian Economic & Social History Review. 57 (1): 49–75. S2CID 213213265.