Epigraphia Indica Vol 27

SR No.: 032581
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hirananda Shastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1947
Total Pages: 490
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 27 MB

Page 46

No. 5 ]
BADAGANGA ROCK INSCRIPTION OF BHUTIVARMAN
north and the north-west, however, are open up to the Brahmaputra river. Bearing these points in mind, the following description of the ruins at a place called Jugijän, about eight miles southwest of Dabokā, midway between the Yamunāmukh and the Hojāi Railway stations on the Lumding-Gauhati section of the Assam-Bengal Railway, about a mile west of the railway line, from Mr. R. M. Nath's article referred to in the beginning of this paper will be found apposite :
"At a distance of about six miles from eicher Yamunāmukh or Hojāi railway stations, at a distance of about a mile from the Assam-Bengal Railway line, opposite mile 400, lie the ruins of the Jugijän temples. The stream Jugijān has a peculiarity. It is very narrow on the upstream side and also on the downstream side, but at the particular place where the shrines stand. it is about 150' wide and about a mile long. It is fordable in other places, but here it is very deep. On the north bank of this lake, about half a furlong off, there are three little mounds, each about 300' apart. Each contains the ruins of a stone temple............ These three temples serve as the gateway to the main shrines which are situated at a distance of about a quarter mile from them. Here there are ruins of two huge temples............ About half a furlong to the north of the shrines, is a big area, bounded on all sides by high earthen walls. There is also a big tank inside, now reduced to a quagmire. This is locally known as the Räj-bādi (royal palace)."'1 ***" To a cursory observer who travels in the interior of Hojāi, it will easily appear that this area was once really thickly populated and highly civilised. Wherever you go, you notice huge tanks, some of them having pucca ghats with stone and brick walls". *** " All about the place, there are innumerable big tanks and hundreds of ruins of old stone structures." *** " It is no exaggeration to state in the Hojāi area in the Yamunā valley, wherever you cast your eyes, you come upon some old ruins. It is here only that ruins of hundreds of old stone temples and images have been found." *** "In the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Burmese entered Nowgong; ..........they pillaged all the surrounding country and committed appalling atrocities on the helpless inhabitants. ...........The depopulation of the region round Dabokā and the Kapili valley dates from these disastrous times. The final dose was given by the horrifying Kala-azar epidemic, during which people died quietly in thousands. So, what was once a thickly populated and highly civilised country, relapsed mostly into thick forests.''
The situation of the Jugijān ruins by the side of a lake, with the Kapili river on the west and surrounded by dark hills practically on all sides, answers remarkably well to the description of the Kapili country and its capital found in the Chinese sources, which can thus be identified with the capital of Davāka. This would make it probable that the kingdom continued independent up to about the middle of the 5th century A.D., when the rising power of the Varmans of Kāmarūpa must have put an end to its separate existence.
In the Harshacharita, the genealogy of the Varmans of Kāmarūpa begins from Bhūtivarman, fifth in ascent from Bhāskaravarman, though it is generally the custom to name only three generations. This probably indicates that he was the person with whom the dynasty began to rise into importance. The remarkable attempt at Aryanising this frontier land by the settlement of about three hundred Brahmins of different gotras in what is at present known as the parganā of Panchakhanda in the Sylhet District, gives us a glimpse into the activities of this man of zeal; and when we find his Vishayāmātya Āryyaguna founding an āśrama on the Badagangā rivulet in the Gupta year 234=554 A.D., almost under the shadow of the Mahāmāyā Hill and the Mahāmāyā temple in the Nowgong District, we at once realise that this intrepid king had taken advantage of the
1J.A.R. S., Vol. V, 1937-38, page 30.
Ibid., p. 31. • Ibid., p. 51. Ibid., p. 62. Ibid., pp. 16-17.