Sadiya Serpent Pillar
{{Short description|Monument in India}}
{{Infobox artifact|name=Sadiya serpent pillar|image=Serpent pillar, A commemorative pillar of Swarganarayan Suhunmung.jpg|image_size=150|writing=Language; Tai language, Script; Ahom script| symbols=A pair of snakes biting their tails is twisted around it|created= Unknown, script inscribed in 1532"The famous Snake Pillar of Sadiya, dated 1532 AD, erected as a mark of truce between the Ahoms and the Mishmis"{{harvcol|Das|1980|p=53}}|discovered=Sadiya, between the Dibang and Deopani rivers||discovered_place=Sadiya|location= Assam State Museum}}
Sadiya Serpent pillar, is a medieval octagonal stone pillar that was erected in the region of historical Chutia kingdom in present-day Sadiya in Assam, India. The builders and the period it was built are unknown. It contains the earliest example of Ahom script and the pillar is inscribed with the Ahom equivalent year of 1532 CE
Description and Location
As per the Assam Gazetteer (1928), the pillar was found between the Dibang and Deopani rivers, on the eastern side close to the seventh milepost of the road from Sadiya to Nizamghat. There was a stone bridge located nearby to the pillar and a road led from this bridge to a brick tank in the vicinity.{{harvcol|C. Allen|1928|p=18}} The British explorer S. F Hannay found a brick gateway, stone bridge and a brick tank in the same region (between the Dibang and Deopani rivers), but fortified by tall ramparts.{{harvcol|Prinsep|1838|p=676}}
Another British explorer T. Block found two similar octagonal stone snake pillars in the Tamreswari Temple.{{harvcol|C. Allen|1928|p=94}} The writer T. Block describes: {{quote|"They (the pillars) were found in the north-eastern section of the enclosed area (of Tamreswari). I found two such bases, their shape is octagonal, 2 feet 6 inches in diameter, with a circular hollow inside; these rested on squares, with their corners cut off and differently moulded. The hemispherical capital measures 2 feet 4 inches in diameter at its base and is perforated by a hollow shaft 1 feet 10 inches land. Near the bottom, a pair of snakes biting their tails is twisted around it."}}
Inscription
The stone pillar contains one of the earliest Ahom inscription founded to date inscribed in it, dated to 1532."The earliest examples of Ahom script are from the sixteenth century: on the Sadiya Snake Pillar (at the Assam State Museum, Guwahati), a lithic inscription most probably made some time after 1524 CE when the area came under Ahom control"{{harvcol|Wharton|2019|p=8}}{{harvcol|Nath|1948|p=20}} The inscription dates to the reign of Suhungmung Dihingia Raja (1497–1539). Ahoms who captured Sadiya in 1524 and entered into a treaty with the local Mishmi tribe, the terms of the treaty were inscribed on an eleven feet high stone pillar.{{harvcol|Bhattacharya|1977|p=142}} The epigraph consisting 9 and a half lines on the pillar is a proclamation issued by Phrasenmung Borgohain (Ahom governor of Sadiya) asking the Mishimis to pay annual tribute in certain articles and to dwell on one side of the Dibang River.{{harvcol|Phukan|1997|p=7}}
Present
It was re-discovered in 1921 in Sadiya, removed from its original site in 1953, and placed in Assam State Museum and since then has been in display there.{{harvcol|Phukan|1997|p=107}}
Gallery
File:Caption about the Sadiya Snake pillar.jpg|Caption about the Sadiya Serpent pillar in Assam State Museum.
Notes
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References
{{Refbegin}}
- {{cite book |last1=Sen |first1=Pada Sen |title=Sources of the History of India: Assam. Sikkim. Tamilnadu |date=1978}}
- {{cite book |last1=Bhattacharya |first1=Asutosh |title=The Sun and the Serpent Lore of Bengal |date=1977 |publisher=Firma KLM |url=https://archive.org/details/sunserpentloreof0000vari/page/142/mode/2up}}
- {{cite book |last1=Nath |first1=Rajmohan |title=The Back Ground Of Assamese Culture |date=1948}}
- {{cite book |last1=Das |first1=Jogesh |title=Folklore of Assam |date=1980 |publisher=National Book Trust}}
- {{cite book|last1=C. Allen|first1=B|year=1928|title=Assam district gazetteers|volume=XI|publisher=Baptist Mission Press}}
- {{Citation |last1=Phukan |first1=J.N. |title=Studies in some aspects of inscriptions of the Ahom kings |date=1997 |publisher=Gauhati University}}
- {{Cite journal|last=Prinsep|first=F.R.S James|title=Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal|date=1838|volume=7|publisher=Asiatic Society (Calcutta, India)
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gjczAQAAMAAJ&q=Journal+of+the+asiatic+7|language=en}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Wharton |first1=David |title=Historical Evidence for the Early Lik Tai Scripts |date=2019}}
{{refend}}
Category:Monumental columns in India
Category:Indian architectural history
Category:Outdoor sculptures in India
Category:Archaeological artefacts of India