Origin and Antiquity of Pragjyotisha
Dr. Jagadindra Raychoudhury
In ancient days, Assam was known as Pragjyotisha and in due course of time, the name had also been changed and known Kamrupa in medieval time which was mentioned in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
Of course, the extent of the kingdom varied from time to time. Regarding the name Pragjyotisha, several theories forwarded and the first one depicted that people like Chao-Theius migrated to India at very early period and occupied three important centres i.e. in the east in Assam, in the centre in the present Bareilly district and in the noth-west in Afghanistan.
In India they were known as the Zuhthis and the three centres named as Prag-Zuhthis, Madhya-Zuhthis and Uttar-Zuhthis respectively. The word Zuhthis was transformed into the Sanskrit word Jyotisha.(9) But this theory is not supported by sufficient evidence.
The other theory tried to connect the word with topographical features of the land and deduces its origin from an Austric pharase Pagar-juh(jo)-tic(c=ch), meaning a region of extensive hills.
The third theory mentioned in Kalika Purana, wherein it was stated that Brahma made the first calculation of the stars in Pragjyotisha. In this connection, Edward Gait explained that Prag means former or eastern and jyotisha, a star, astrology shining. Pragjyotishpur may therefore, be taken to the mean the “City of Eastern Astrology”.
The astronomical significance of the country is justified by a number of references in the Vedic literature to its association with solar cult and the planetary worship and is also confirmed by a number Assamese works dealing with these subjects. (2)
In the Ramayana it is stated that the city of Pragjyotisha was built on a gold-crested mountain called Varaha, which 64 yojanas in extent and which stood on the fathomless varunalaya (sea). In the Mahabharata, Bhagadatta, the king of Pragjyotisha , is called Sailalaya (dwelling among the mountains) and it is also stated that his troops consisted of Kiratas, China and dwellers of the sea coast.
The low-lying area might have connected with the Bay of Bengal by the estuary of the Brahmaputra. In the present context also the low-laying area of Sylhet and Mymensing are still called hagor (sagara). In the Bhatera copper plate inscription of Govinda Kesavadeva, king of Srihatta (cjrca 1049 A.D.), the sea or sagara is mentioned as the boundary of certain lands granted.(3)
During the Mahabharata war the kingdom of Pragjyotisha was included the greater part of modern Assam together with Bengal districts of Jalpaiguri, Coach Behar, Rongpur, Bogra, Mymensing, Decca, Tippera, part of pabna and also part of east Nepal. (1) It is stated that in the kalika purana that when Naraka was ruling in Pragjyotisha his friend Bana was ruling in Sonitpur which is identified with modern Tezpur.
It is believed that the kingdom of Bana included the entire district of Darrang and North Lakhimpur subdivision.
The Buddhist record and Greek accounts of the 4th century B.C. confirm the supposition that the whole of western Sylhet and south of eastern Bengal and part of south–west Bengal were under the sea though the delta was then beginning to form. The Greek accounts make mention of islands in the estuary of the Ganges, the least width of which river even within the Magadha was about 10 k.m.
The Buddhist Jatakas express that large sea going vessels laden with merchandise could sail even from Champa (Bhagalpur). This shows that the sea then stretched far inland. The southern boundary of Pragjyotisha about 1000B.C. was therefore the sea.
It was Babu Kedernath Majumdar who tried to authenticate imbibing references from Manu-Sanhita and the Mahabharata, that in the epic age at least three-fourths of modern Bengal, including the whole of the Mymensing district , was under the sea known as the Lauhitya Sagara which extended, towards the north, almost up to the submontane tracts of the Himalayas and that the Brahmaputra fell into this sea without having to run a southerly course round the Garo Hills.(8)
It is very much clear that Pragjyotisha was a much larger kingdom than most of the other kingdoms mentioned in the Mahabharata and most of the sixteen Mahajanapadas existing during the time of Gautam Buddha.
According to Vincent Smith, the poet kalidasa flourished in the first part of the fifth century point out that Kamrupa and Pragjyotisha are the same kingdom, Rajasekhara, the court poet of Mahipala, the Pratihar king of kanauj (910-940).
It was also mention that Pragjyotisha and kamrupa as one of the countries of Aryavarta along with Magadha, Paundra, Tamrapali and Suhma. The kings of Pragjyotisha preferred to designate themselves as Lords of Pragjyotisha down to the twelfth century.
Pragjyotishpur was the capital of pragjyotisha which is the site of Dispur of modern Guwahati. Pragjyotishpur has been taken to mean the “City of Eastern Astrology”(4) or Astronomy. Towards the east of this town there is a temple on the crest of a hill known Chitrachal, and this temple is dedicated to the Navagrahas or combination of nine planets.
It is probable that this temple is the origin of the name Pragjyotishpur. It is stated in the kalika Purana that “here Brahma first created the stars and here the city is called Pragjyotishpur – a city equal to the city of Indra.”(7)
It is evident that Pragjyotishpur was the learning hub where study of astrology or astronomy was practiced in ancient India but it could not ascertain whether the learning process was of Aryan or pre-Aryan origin.
Gait says that the name Pragjyotishpur “is interesting in connection with that reputation which the country has always held as a land of magic and incantation and with the view that it was in Assam that the Tantric form of Hinduism originated.”(5)
It is observed that there is no connection between Pragjyotishpur or the temple of Navagraha as a land of magic or centre of tantric. It may be the temple Kamakshya which was associated with Tantric Hinduism or magic and sorcery.
It is not known how long Pragjyotishpur continued to be the capital of the kingdom but it seems that after the death of Bhaskaravarman, the kamrupa capital was shifted to Tezpur which was known either Haruppeswara or Hatapeswara.
References :
- Ancient Countries in Eastern India JASB,p-106.
- Choudhury, op.cit., p.27)
- Epigraphia Indica vol.XIX pp 277 to 286.
- Gait’s history of Assam P.15
- Gait’s History of Assam.
- Kakati,B.K. The Mother Goddess Kamakhya, Gauhati, 1978, p.6
- Kalika Purana
- Maimansingher Itihash, chapter 1
- Nath,R.M. The Background of Assamese Culture, Gauhati, 1978 p.4f
[Dr. Jagadindra Raychoudhury. Guwahati based columnist; Mob no. 8812011012]
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