Dr Tapati Baruah Kashyap
(tapatibkashyap@gmail.com)
I was struck with awe the moment we reached the Ramkha Peeth Devalaya at the confluence of Dikhow, Dorika and Brahmaputra at Dikhowmukh near Sivasagar. An important Shakti Peeth, it is believed that it was here that Sati’s heart fell when a distraught Lord Shiva was carrying Her corpse around the world on His shoulder until Lord Vishnu dismembered it into 51 pieces. Every place where a part of Her body fell subsequently became a Shakti-peeth, and Ramkha Peeth is believed to be one of them.
Siukapha is said to have visited this shrine, once also known as Ramkha Deoshal, when he was expanding his territory after establishing the great Ahom kingdom in 1228 CE. Ramkha Peeth can thus be called a shrine of the pre-Ahom period. Ramkha Peeth, however, went into obscurity soon thereafter, apparently due to a change in the river’s course owing to floods and earthquakes, until it was rediscovered and renovated by the 34th Ahom king, Siuneopha, or Lakshmi Simha (1769-1780).
According to local history, Lakshmi Simha, soon after ascending the throne, was sailing up the Dikhow when his boat got mysteriously stuck in the middle of the river. Unable to move the boat in any direction, it was found that a piece of submerged rock had brought it to a standstill. While all efforts to free the boat went in vain, the king that night had a dream that the piece of submerged rock was nothing but a form in which Devi was lying there. The next day, the king organised a sacrificial ritual and offered to build a temple for the Devi. Since then it came to be known as a Devalaya instead of a Deoshal, and Devi worship was introduced in the Brahminical way.
What is the unique characteristic of this Shakti Peeth?The priest narrated the above story, showing us the piece of sacred rock which is considered to be a divine representation of the Devi. Not much written material is available about this shrine. ‘Pabitra Asam’, edited by Dr Maheswar Neog, contains a note written by Dr Lila Gogoi which says that this shrine was originally built by the Bhuyans but was later on also embraced by the Chutiyas. This is enough to believe that Ramkha Peeth is a pre-Ahom shrine. He has also stated that the original site of the temple is now somewhere in the heart of the Brahmaputra, along with a Shivalinga.
The name Ramkha has been in existence since time immemorial. Dr Sarbeswar Rajguru has suggested that in ancient times, there were three Devi peeths in Assam – that of Devi Tamreswari in eastern Assam, of Devi Kamakhya in western Assam and of Devi Ramkha in central Assam. According to him, “One cannot rule out the possibility of the word Ramkha deriving from Ramaa, one of Devi’s names, from which another word, Ramakhya, had also emerged with the passing of time.”
Dr Rajguru also has not ruled out the possibility of the word ‘Ramkha’ having an Austric origin. “If this can be established, then there is also a likelihood of considering the origin of Ramkha Peeth as a shrine of the Khasis and the Austric people, as is the case with the Kamakhya,” he has said. On the basis of this, Dr Rajguru has also suggested that the Ramkha Peeth Devalaya was definitely established by a certain pre-Aryan and pre-Ahom community, which could possibly be the Chutiyas. In this context it is important to recall that HK Barpujari, in The Comprehensive History of Assam (Vol 1), has evidently mentioned the existence of the concept of Shakti, or primordial energy symbolised in a woman in Assam, as “an amalgam of many elements drawn from various sources, pre-Aryan, non-Aryan (not excluding non-Indian), Aryan and aboriginal”, and Ramkha Peeth Devalaya could be an important example of this. That the Deuri, Mising and other communities continue to offer prayers here is enough to prove this point.
That Ramkha Peeth Devalaya has been in existence since much before the establishment of the Ahom kingdom has also been mentioned by eminent historian Bhuban Chandra Handique. Referring to the ‘Nao-boicha Phukanar Buranji’, he too has mentioned about Siukapha offering prayers here. It is also pertinent to note that there were a number of shrines known as ‘Deoshal’ in the pre-Ahom era. Such shrines listed by Handique include Tamreswari Deoshal, Barganya Deoshal, Tengapaniya Deoshal, Dowandhiya Deoshal, Burhi-Gosani Deoshal, Burha-Burhir Deoshal, Ramkha Deoshal and so on. In this context, it is also worth noting that a Deoshal belonging to the Barahi kingdom was already in existence at the site where Siukapha had established his permanent capital at Charaideo in 1253 CE.
While Devi worship had started since the time of Lakshmi Simha, the shrine has been a victim of both natural and man-made disasters in the past few centuries. It was shifted several times due to earthquakes and riverbank erosion and had also suffered during the Burmese invasions of 1817-1823. A copper plate issued by the Ahom king in the name of the shrine also went missing during that period. Local folklore also mentionsthe shrine being washed away by the river immediately after it was desecrated by the Burmese invaders and that the sacred rock had to be lifted from the riverbed and brought to the present site soon afterwards.
That Assam is a land of Shaktism with the supreme Maa Kamakhya temple as its epicentre can also be ascertained from the widespread existence of Shakti peeths in different parts of the state, Ramkha Peeth Devalaya being one among them. Some such significant shrines are the Dikkarvasini or Tamreswari temple at Sadiya, Devi Doul in Sivasagar, the Kako-Gosani temple at Bokakhat and Kaziranga, the Aai Padumani temple near North Lakhimpur, Malinithan at Likabali (inside Arunachal Pradesh close to Lakhimpur), the Tukreswari temple near Goalpara, the Mahamaya temple at Bagaribari (near Dhubri), the Bagheswari Devi temples in Guwahati and Bongaigaon, the Maa Chandika temple at Chhaygaon, the Burhi-Gosani temple in Jorhat, Harhi Devalaya at Dhakuwakhana, the Deopani temple near Bokajan and the Bhairavi temple in Tezpur. With the arrival of Devi Durga, all those places resume reverberating with Shakti, and at the same time, people all over Assam are agog with their passion for infusing Shakti in themselves to celebrate life to its utmost.