Place · historic river city · India
Tezpur
The historic city on the Brahmaputra in Sonitpur district, Assam, 175 kilometres from Guwahati — layered with mythic (Kirata-Puranic Sonitpur, the capital of Banasura whose daughter Usha fell in love with Krishna's grandson Aniruddha), archaeological (6-9th century Salastambha-dynasty stone sculpture, the 9-century Da-Parbatia doorframe with its Gupta-period figures) and Ahom-period traditions. The 1826 Treaty of Yandabo transferred Assam to the British with Tezpur as a key administrative station. Jyotiprasad Agarwala (1903-1951, pioneer of Assamese cinema with Joymoti 1935 and modern Assamese literature) was born here; the Agarwala house and the 1850 St Peter's Church are the key heritage structures. Modern Tezpur is Assam's cultural capital with the Tezpur University (1994).
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 26.630, 92.800
Connections (2)
- Succession in timeSivasagar
Tezpur's Da Parbatia doorframe and Bamuni Hills ruins belong to Kamarupa in the sixth and seventh centuries; Sivasagar's tank and pavilions to the Ahoms a thousand years later. Between them the valley's political centre moved upstream, from a Sanskritic kingdom in touch with Gupta India to a Tai-speaking dynasty that arrived over the Patkai and wrote its own chronicles in Ahom.
- Site adjacencyPasighat
Pasighat on the right bank of the Siang and Tezpur on the north bank of the Brahmaputra are the two historic colonial frontier posts of the North-East Frontier Tract — Tezpur the Assam Rifles headquarters from which the 1911 Abor Expedition and the 1962 war command and control were run, Pasighat the forward base of the same expedition that was founded on 1 October 1911 after the murder of Noel Williamson. The two are a hundred and forty kilometres apart across the Siang-Brahmaputra confluence and together frame the colonial geography of the Siang frontier.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Tezpur”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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